Chapter 231 You could have done better

Chapter 231 You could have done better
The private tarmac of the international airfield was bathed in the harsh, sodium-lit glow of midnight. A sleek, twin-engine Gulfstream sat idling on the runway, its turbine engines humming a low, powerful bass that vibrated through the damp night air.

Two of Rafaele’s heavily armed syndicate enforcers hauled Vicenzo across the tarmac by his arms, his boots dragging dead weight against the asphalt. His face was still a swollen, bruised map of the beating he had taken at the docks, and his hands were cuffed tightly behind his back in industrial-grade zip ties. 

They were heading straight for the airstair of the private jet to begin a one-way, non-stop flight back to Palermo,straight into the subterranean justice of the Sicilian underworld.

Vicenzo, half-conscious and desperate, forced his battered eyes open. He looked past the private gates and caught sight of the distant, brightly lit commercial terminal bustling with late-night travelers, airline staff, and airport security guards. A frantic, last-ditch spark of survival flared in his chest.

If I make it to the crowd, if I scream loud enough, they can't disappear me in broad daylight, he thought.

As they reached the base of the metal steps leading up to the jet, Vicenzo suddenly threw his weight forward. He slammed his shoulder into the enforcer on his left, wrenching his arm free with a sudden, adrenaline-fueled surge, and bolted toward the chain-link fence separating the private tarmac from the busy public departure zone.

"Help! Help me!" Vicenzo screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice cracking hysterically as he sprinted toward a cluster of baffled tourists and baggage handlers near the terminal doors. "They're kidnapping me! Call the police! Call—!"

He didn't even make it ten feet.

A heavy hand clamped onto the back of his jacket like a hydraulic press, spinning him around with bone-jarring force.

Rafaele had walked up behind him silently, moving with the cold, effortless speed of a shadow. He didn't look angry; if anything, his expression was one of mild, affectionate exasperation, like an older sibling dealing with a troubled relative.

Before Vicenzo could scream again, Rafaele hooked an arm firmly around his neck, pulling him into a tight, inescapable headlock, and raised his voice to project across the entire terminal apron, waving gracefully toward the stunned crowd of onlookers who had turned to stare.

"I am so, so sorry, everyone!" Rafaele called out smoothly, flashing a warm, apologetic, brotherly smile at the gathering crowd while tightening his grip just enough to cut off Vicenzo's oxygen. "Please forgive my poor brother, Rick. His bipolar medication wore off this evening, and whenever he has an episode, he gets this wild delusion that we're trying to hurt him."

Vicenzo thrashed wildly, his muffled screams sounding like gurgling protests against Rafaele's forearm. "Mmmph! Mmm-mph!"

"We're just getting him back home to Milan for his specialized psychiatric treatment," Rafaele continued, nodding politely to a pair of airport security guards who had started walking over, their eyes widening in sympathetic understanding. "Terrible condition, truly. Breaks our hearts every time he acts out like this. Thank you for your patience, folks! Sorry for the scene!"

The security guards, seeing a well-dressed man handling a clearly distressed, bruised individual with what looked like familial patience and recognizing the high-end private aviation clearance slowed to a halt, offering awkward, sympathetic nods.

"Hey, buddy, you need a hand with him?" one of the guards called out from twenty paces away.

"No, no, we've got him completely under control! Thank you, officer!" Rafaele called back with a warm, reassuring wave.

Vicenzo’s eyes bulged with sheer terror as he realized the trap had just snapped shut around him in the most humiliating way possible. He wasn't going to be saved by a crowd; he was being packaged, labeled, and shipped out as the family's crazy relative.

Rafaele leaned down, pressing his lips directly against Vicenzo’s ear as he dragged the kicking, thrashing man back toward the private jet.

"Stupido," Rafaele whispered softly, his voice a venomous hiss. "You really thought a crowd of tourists could save you from your own bloodline?"

Without another word, Rafaele and his enforcers heaved Vicenzo up the airstair, shoving him through the cabin door of the Gulfstream. The heavy metal hatch slammed shut behind them, sealing the cabin as the jet taxied away from the terminal, carrying Vicenzo straight into the dark, inescapable history he had tried to outrun for years.

The private Gulfstream touched down on the sun-baked tarmac of a private airfield outside Palermo with a sharp, whining shudder. The Mediterranean heat hit like a physical blow the moment the cabin door hissed open, but inside the aircraft, the air was freezing, dead, and heavy with the scent of impending execution.

Two enforcers hauled Vicenzo down the metal airstair, his boots scraping blindly against the steps, his hands still locked in industrial zip ties.

Waiting at the base of the tarmac, leaning against the door of a matte-black bulletproof Mercedes, stood Rafaele. He looked entirely composed, adjusting his cuffs as he watched Vicenzo stumble onto Sicilian soil.

"Welcome home, Rick," Rafaele said, his voice smooth, quiet, and completely devoid of warmth. 

Vicenzo’s head snapped up, his swollen, bruised face twisting into a bitter, manic grin. He didn't cower. Instead, a dark, desperate calculation flashed behind his bloodshot eyes.

"My father?" Vicenzo sneered, his voice hoarse. “Before you lock me away in one of your concrete holes, Rafaele... I want a word with him. Face to face. Just me and the old man."

Rafaele stared at him for a long, unblinking moment, reading every micro-expression, every ounce of trembling desperation hidden beneath Vicenzo’s bravado. A cold, sardonic smile touched the corner of Rafaele's mouth.

"A word?" Rafaele murmured, stepping closer. "You think you can walk into his villa and negotiate your way out of a grave?"

"What are you afraid of, Rafaele?" Vicenzo hissed back, leaning his weight forward against the enforcers holding him. "Let me talk to him. Or are you just a lapdog who needs his master's permission to finish a job?"

Rafaele’s eyes narrowed into twin slits of pure ice. He didn't get angry; he simply weighed the variables. In Palermo, Vicenzo was a rat in a sealed jar. There were no crowds here, no tourists to fool, and every shadow belonged to the family.

"Cut the ties," Rafaele commanded without breaking eye contact with Vicenzo.

An enforcer stepped up with a blade, slicing through the heavy plastic zip ties binding Vicenzo's wrists. Vicenzo rubbed his raw, bleeding skin, flexing his fingers as the blood rushed back into his hands.

"Lead the way," Rafaele challenged softly, tapping the custom leather holster resting against his own hip. "Let's see what you have to say to him."

The ancestral villa sat high on the rugged cliffs overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea, its ancient stone walls hiding a courtyard draped in deep, suffocating shadows.

Jordan sat in a high-backed leather armchair at the center of the terrace, his silver hair brushed straight back, wearing a pristine linen shirt despite the evening chill. He didn't look up as heavy footsteps echoed across the stone patio. He just took a slow sip from a glass of dark amber whiskey.

"So," Jordan rasped, his voice like grinding stones as he finally raised his heavy-lidded eyes to look at the battered wreck standing before him. "The prodigal son returns. Dragged home like a stray dog."

Vicenzo stopped ten paces away. His chest heaved violently, his breath coming in hot, ragged gasps. He looked at the old man,the architect of his paranoia, the cold, demanding shadow that had shaped every ruthless impulse in his blood.

"You didn't expect to see me breathing after going to face the Lockharts alone, did you?" Vicenzo spat, his voice trembling with a lifetime of pent-up poison.

"I told you the Lockharts are not to be messed with," Jordan replied, his tone chillingly indifferent as he set his glass down on the stone table. "You brought shame to this family, Rick. You were weak."

"Weak?!" Vicenzo screamed, the word tearing out of his throat like a jagged blade. "I learned it from the best! You raised me to be a monster, and when I finally became one, you called me a failure because I didn't make your dream come true!"

Jordan slowly rose from his chair, his tall frame still carrying an intimidating, lethal authority. "Watch your tone in this house, boy. You are nothing. You have never been anything."

"I am your blood!" Vicenzo snarled, taking a sudden, explosive step forward.

Rafaele stepped instantly to the side, his hand dropping smoothly to his holster, his eyes locking onto Vicenzo with lightning-fast anticipation. "Fermati, Rick," Rafaele warned, his voice dropping into a lethal register. "Don't even think about it."

In a blur of motion too fast for the human eye to track, Vicenzo didn't lunge at his father,he pivoted with terrifying speed, his hand lashing out like a striking viper.

Clack.

Before Rafaele’s fingers could wrap around the grip of his weapon, Vicenzo’s hand ripped the heavy Beretta clean out of Rafaele’s holster, spinning around and leveling the black barrel squarely at Donato’s chest.

Rafaele froze. The two enforcers behind them instantly raised their submachine guns, safety clicks echoing loudly across the terrace.

"Don't move!" Vicenzo roared, his voice cracking with hysterical, unhinged adrenaline as his finger tightened around the trigger. "Nobody fucking move or I turn his chest into pulp right now!"

Jordan didn't flinch. He stood tall, his old eyes glaring at the barrel of the gun with icy disdain. "Go ahead," Jordan whispered, his voice steady as a monument. "Pull the trigger, you pathetic piece of garbage. Prove to me you have the stomach for it."

Vicenzo’s hand shook violently, the heavy pistol wobbling as tears of pure, burning rage welled up in his eyes.

"You could have done better as a father, you could have begged mom that you were at fault, you could have made up with her…you could have admitted you stole from the Lockharts!" Vicenzo choked out, his voice breaking into a wet, agonizing sob as the weight of every broken promise, every cruel word, and every abandoned memory crashed down on him. "You could have taught me how to be a better son... instead of just a weapon."

Jordan’s expression didn't soften by a single millimeter. "A weapon is all you ever were."

"Bastardo!" Vicenzo screamed.

BANG!

The deafening roar of the gunshot shattered the silence of the cliffs, sending a flock of sea birds scattering wildly into the dark sky above.

The bullet tore straight through Jordan’s chest. The old man staggered backward, his eyes widening in shock before he collapsed heavily onto the stone terrace, a dark crimson pool spreading rapidly across the white linen of his shirt.

Rafaele didn't yell. He didn't rush forward to catch the falling patriarch.

Instead, a terrifying, dead silence settled over him. His dark eyes locked onto Vicenzo, burning with a cold, apocalyptic fury that eclipsed anything he had felt before.

Vicenzo stood frozen, the smoking gun still clutched in his trembling hand, staring down at the blood on the ground as the adrenaline instantly drained from his body, leaving behind a hollow, shivering void.

"You..." Rafaele whispered, his voice dangerously low as he took one slow, deliberate step forward. "...just signed your own death warrant."