Chapter 12 - The Mask Slips
Arturo Morales didn't attempt to argue further. The mention of the recording stripped away his final layer of charismatic deception, exposing the cornered, rabid animal beneath the silk suit.
"Kill them!" Arturo screamed, dropping to his knees behind the heavy mahogany table as his hand plunged into his suit pocket, drawing a small, silver backup pistol.
Simultaneously, two of the three harbor capos sitting at the table—men who had clearly been bought off by Arturo’s stolen millions—snatched at concealed weapons hidden beneath their jackets, flipping the heavy dining table upward to act as a wooden barricade against Gabriel and Marcus.
What followed lasted less than five seconds, but to my twelve-year-old eyes, it unfolded in agonizing, brutal slow motion.
Marcus moved first, his suppressed rifle spitting two rapid, rhythmic bursts of fire. The two corrupt capos didn't even manage to clear their holsters before high-velocity rounds shattered their shoulders and chests, throwing them backward into the glass display cabinets lining the dining room wall with a deafening crash of breaking crystal.
The third capo—an old, scarred man named Don Vincenzo who had served under Gabriel for twenty years—didn't draw a weapon. He threw himself flat onto the floor, hands clamped over his head, screaming, "I am loyal, Don Gabriel! I knew nothing of this treason!"
Behind the overturned table, Arturo fired his silver pistol blindly over the mahogany edge. A bullet shattered the limestone molding inches above my head, showering my hair with white stone dust.
Before I could even duck, Gabriel Morales was moving.
He didn't seek cover. He didn't drop to the floor. He lunged forward with terrifying, gladiatorial speed, vaulting directly over the overturned mahogany table and landing squarely on top of his brother on the Persian rug below.
Arturo screamed as Gabriel’s knee drove into his chest, pinning him flat against the floor. The silver pistol clattered away across the polished wood.
Gabriel grabbed his younger brother by the lapels of his silk suit, lifting him halfway off the floor before slamming his head back against the hardwood with a sickening thud.
"Why?" Gabriel roared, his voice finally breaking its glacial control, vibrating with a raw, agonizing fury that shook the room. "I gave you half my city! I gave you my trust! Why did you murder her family, Arturo? Why did you sell our blood to Rojas?"
Arturo, blood trickling from his split lip, stared up at his older brother with a look of pure, venomous hatred. He didn't beg for mercy; he knew none existed in this room.
"Because you were soft, Gabriel!" Arturo spat, coughing red foam onto his white shirt. "You listened to that old woman! You let an accountant tell you when to shoot and when to show mercy! Rojas promised me the entire Atlantic transit corridor if I delivered your head and burned her ledger! You’re a dinosaur, Gabriel! Your time is over!"
Gabriel looked down at his brother for three long, silent seconds. The rage in his amber eyes slowly evaporated, replaced by a profound, chilling emptiness—the absolute void of a man who had just cut the final tie to his own humanity.
"My time may end one day, Arturo," Gabriel whispered, drawing his heavy tactical pistol from his holster and pressing the warm steel barrel directly against his brother’s chest—right over his heart. "But yours ends this morning."
"Gabriel, wait—" Arturo gasped, his arrogance finally cracking into terror as he realized his brother wasn't going to call for a trial or an interrogation.
Crack.
The single, unsuppressed gunshot was deafening inside the enclosed dining room.
I flinched, closing my eyes for a fraction of a second as the smell of burnt cordite filled the air. When I opened them, Arturo Morales lay completely still on the Persian rug, his silk suit stained with a rapidly expanding pool of crimson.
Gabriel stood up slowly, his face expressionless as he holstered his smoking weapon. He looked down at the old capo, Vincenzo, who was still trembling on the floor with his hands over his head.
"Get up, Vincenzo," Gabriel ordered quietly.
May you like
The old man scrambled to his knees, his hands shaking. "Don Gabriel... I swear on the graves of my children, Arturo told us we were here to discuss labor strikes at the docks. He said nothing of murder or Rojas."
"I know," Gabriel said, offering the old man a hand and pulling him to his feet. "If I thought you were a traitor, you would be bleeding beside him. Call your loyal men from the harbor. Tell them the southern cartel has breached our walls, and Arturo is dead. We are at war with Hector Rojas as of this second."
