Silence Reveals Hidden Answers’ by Michael Anderson novel Chapter 108

Chapter 108

Harvey Prescott.

Contd

20 Vouchers

Then I see David approaching with a few of my gangsters hauling heavy duffels behind him… at least thirty which bulging and straining at the zippers. They hit the circle’s center, with heavy thuds that kick up fine white grains.

‘Open it.”

David unzips the first bag and it’s ash. Stacks of it. He moves to the next and unzips it… that one reveals gold bars, dull and heavy, nestled inside like ingots of sunlight gone dense. Another bag: more cash. More gold. The Don’s henchmen around us shift and are unable to hide the sharp intake of breath.

I stand, brushing sand off my pants. Jennifer’s mom wants us at a fitting later; I don’t plan to linger in this circus.

‘For the damages,” I say, slipping my hands into my pockets. “These are more than enough to build back twenty buildings. And I put another bag for apologies. All gold bags weigh twenty kilos.”

The Don surveys everything. His eyes move over the pile slowly, deliberately calculating something I can’t see. “You think I don’t have money?”

knew this bastard wouldn’t just roll over.

I’m sure you do.”

Can you pay for the disrespect? Cash fixes buildings, but every fucking gang in the city knows a common enforcer like you humiliated me. That’s reputation damage…paid only by your death.”

Well, I don’t wanna die.”

You’re right.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “You’re valuable. Really, really valuable. It would be bad to see you die. So, I would love an addition….a brave idiot like you in my family. Even if your braveness pisses me off, I could still make good of it.”

squint. “What do you mean by ‘your family’?”

In addition to this, I want you to marry my daughter.”

David looks at me in shock. Silence passes over all of us, but it gets stupider as the seconds pass. Did he just say marry?

I’m a married man, you realize.”

In our traditions, a man can have many women. He’s never tied to just one, I want your life, Harvey. Marry my daughter, ind for the rest of it, you’ll be my son-in-law doing whatever dirty work I need. I’ll even spare that Jennifer girl.”

don’t respond.

Is it too much to ask? Tell me no…so I can send one man to grab your Jennifer wherever she is now. I’ll fuck that bitch myself while you watch!”

He growls the last words at me, now on his feet, and all of his men who were at ease snap to alert.

They’re on alert because they expect me to combust. Every single one of them is waiting for the explosion… the lunge, the scream, the desperate violence of a man whose wife has just been threatened. They’re sure I’m about to lose it.

1/3

12:31 pm

OP

0:40

Chapter 108

I click my tongue instead. Roll it around my mouth like I’m tasting something.

“So you don’t want this money?” I nod toward the pile of gold and cash sinking into the sand.

20 vouchers

“I think you’re more valuable than this.” The Don’s face lifts into a smile that won’t last. “Plus, you have a rich background. I would love little grandchildren from your side of the world.”

“Okay.” I take my hands out of my pockets, palms open to where every man on this beach can see them. “I won’t offer this money again. Now…my turn.”

Two words.

“Lucan Burreiro, Don of Portugal.”

The moment I mention the name, Reign is on his feet.

Even Moretti congests…I see his face purpling, cigar trembling between his fingers until it falls and the ember dies. He doesn’t even notice.

I keep going.

Burreiro’s no street-level boss like these clowns; he’s one of the Five Godfathers who sit above the families, above the commissions, above the governments. They don’t control territories….they control continents.

Presidents beg his permission for black ops; country-bound Dons like Moretti are ants to him, restricted to their little sandboxes while he owns the globe.

The Dons who run families in New York, in London, in Moscow are regional managers. Burreiro is the kind of man who doesn’t ask permission because no one exists who can grant it. And Moretti has been having conversations with the cartels in Brazil about how to take him out.

I know because the cartels talk. And when they talk, I listen.

“What do you think Burreiro would have to say,” I continue, stepping forward, enough that only Moretti and his son can hear, “when I leak the conversations you’ve been having with the Souza faction? The ones where you promised them port access in Sicily in exchange for enough men and firepower to hit Burreiro’s compound in Cascais?”

Moretti’s face has gone gray. His lips part, but nothing comes out.

I have the transcripts,” I say. “I have the recordings. I have the names of those you’ve approached, every meeting you’ve taken. In one night, Burreiro comes for you and your family. You all will be dead. I only burned the properties you have in New York. He’ll go back to Italy. He’ll find your relatives in Calabria, in Naples, in Palermo. And he’ll burn them until no one on this earth remembers the name Moretti ever existed.”

Moretti’s eyes are bloodshot now and wet with something that might be tears or might be the beginning of pure animal terror. His lips are shaking. His hands are shaking. The great Don Moretti, reduced to a trembling old man in a black suit.

“I.. I didn’t agree to be a part of it-”

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