Chapter 4 - Cold Arithmetic
Marco stepped forward carrying a five-gallon industrial steel bucket. Inside was not water, but thick, pungent, caustic commercial floor-stripper—the concentrated chemical agent that hotel cleaning staff were strictly instructed to handle only with elbow-length rubber gloves and heavy face respirators.
Beside the bucket lay a single, small brass spoon—the exact silver-plated teaspoon Victor had accused Sofia of stealing.
Victor began to hyperventilate, rocking the heavy wooden chair back and forth, his boots scraping frantically against the slick concrete. "No! No, please! Mr. Romano, I beg of you! I have children! I have a daughter!"
"You have a daughter?" Alessandro asked, his voice dripping with an ice so absolute it seemed to freeze the steam in the air. "Then you should have remembered what a child sounds like when she asks if her mother is going to die."
Alessandro gestured with two fingers.
The two tactical guards stepped in, clamping Victor’s shoulders down with the force of hydraulic presses. Marco stepped behind him, grabbing Victor by his thinning hair, wrenching his head backward over the headrest of the chair.
Alessandro picked up the small brass spoon from the table.
"Four months of withheld wages," Alessandro said, examining the spoon under the fluorescent light. "At four thousand two hundred a month, that is sixteen thousand eight hundred dollars. Plus interest. Plus damages for emotional distress, medical bills, and the sheer insolence of using my name to terrorize a sick woman."
"I’ll give you five hundred thousand!" Victor screamed, spitting saliva as he fought against the iron grip on his skull. "One million! Right now! The wire routing codes are in my phone! In my jacket pocket!"
"Your money is already mine," Alessandro said calmly. "Marco took your phone twenty minutes ago. The accounts in the Caymans were liquidated and transferred to the Romano Foundation four minutes ago. You own nothing, Victor. You do not even own the air inside your lungs."
Alessandro dipped the brass spoon into the concentrated chemical stripper, coating it completely in the caustic, amber sludge.
He brought it up, holding it an inch from Victor’s terrified, watering eyes. The fumes alone caused the skin around Victor's nose to turn violently red and peel.
"A thief who steals with his hands loses his fingers," Alessandro murmured, his voice a dark hymn of underworld justice. "A thief who steals with a pen loses his eyes. But a man who steals food from a child’s mouth..."
Alessandro lowered the spoon, letting a single, burning drop of the chemical fall directly onto Victor’s pristine Italian leather shoe. The leather instantly hissed, bubbling and dissolving into a smoking, blackened crater that ate straight through to the white flesh beneath.
Victor shrieked—a piercing, animal sound of pure agony that bounced off the iron pipes of the ceiling.
"Quiet," Alessandro snapped.
The scream choked back into a ragged, pathetic sob.
"You are going to sit in this chair until dawn," Alessandro told him, tossing the brass spoon into the bucket with a sharp *clink*. "Every hour, Marco is going to read one name from that yellow ledger. Every maid. Every dishwasher. Every undocumented laundry boy you blackmailed into silence. And for every name on that list, you are going to sign a confession of grand larceny, extortion, and corporate fraud."
"I’ll sign! I’ll sign them all right now!" Victor wept, trembling uncontrollably.
"No," Alessandro said, his voice dropping into a register that made the hair on the back of Marco’s neck stand up. "You will sign them one by one. Over eighteen hours. One hour for every month you played God in my basement. And if you pass out, Dr. Vance will bring an adrenaline shot to wake you up so you don't miss a single signature."
Alessandro turned his back on the crying man, buttoning his coat.
"And after the eighteenth hour, Marco?"
"Yes, Mr. Romano?"
"Call the Federal Prosecutor. Hand them the confessions, the bank records, and the security footage of his personal safe. Deliver him to the federal courthouse steps in his underwear."
Alessandro paused at the threshold of the iron door, looking back over his shoulder.
May you like
"Let the law finish what is left of him. A federal penitentiary has many men who do not like managers who hurt women. He will find plenty of company."
***
