"To the family, to our future, and to the man who built this empire from nothing."
The consigliere's voice carried across the grand ballroom, smooth as aged whiskey, sharp as broken glass. His crystal glass caught the light from the massive chandelier above, throwing fractured rainbows across the faces of thirty-seven men in tailored suits. The air smelled of expensive cigars, roasted duck, and something else, something wrong that Salvatore Vieri couldn't quite place.
Salvatore remained seated at the head of the table, his expression carved from stone.
Silverware clinked against fine china as servants moved between the tables like ghosts. The string quartet in the corner played something classical, something forgettable, their instruments weaving through the low rumble of conversation. Outside the tall windows, the city sprawled beneath them, lights glittering like diamonds scattered across black velvet.
"Boss, you've outdone yourself with this spread," Marco said from three seats down, gesturing with his fork at the prime rib bleeding on his plate.
Salvatore didn't respond, his dark eyes scanning the room with practiced precision, cataloging every face, every gesture, every microexpression.
Something's wrong, something's been wrong all night, I can feel it in my bones.
The consigliere, Vincent Moretti, still stood with his glass raised, waiting for the others to join the toast. His smile was perfect, too perfect, like a mask stretched over something rotten underneath. Salvatore watched as the other lieutenants lifted their glasses one by one, some eager, some hesitant.
"Come now, don't leave me hanging," Vincent said with a laugh that didn't reach his eyes.
The men around the table rose to their feet, chairs scraping against marble floors.
Salvatore lifted his glass slowly, deliberately, watching Vincent's reflection in the dark wine. The consigliere's pupils were dilated despite the bright lights, and a thin sheen of sweat glistened on his upper lip. Twenty-three years together, and Salvatore knew every tell, every nervous habit.
"To the family," the men chorused, their voices a discordant blend of loyalty and lies.
The chandelier above them swayed slightly, disturbed by some unfelt breeze.
Salvatore brought the glass to his lips but didn't drink, instead letting the wine wet his mouth before setting it down. Vincent's eye twitched, just once, just enough. The string quartet hit a sour note, the violinist's bow slipping.
"Boss, you didn't drink," Marco observed, his tone careful, measured, like a man testing ice.
"I'm savoring the moment," Salvatore replied, his voice carrying the weight of threat beneath silk.
The servants had stopped moving, Salvatore noticed, they'd positioned themselves near the exits, hands hidden in their white jackets.
They're not servants, they're soldiers, and I'm a dead man unless I move first.
Vincent's smile cracked at the edges, revealing something feral underneath. The consigliere's hand drifted toward his jacket, and Salvatore saw the future unfold in crystalline clarity. Twenty-three years of partnership dissolved in the space between heartbeats.
"It's nothing personal, Sal," Vincent said, his voice suddenly cold, empty of the warmth it had carried seconds before.
The first gunshot shattered the illusion of civility like a hammer through stained glass.
Salvatore's instincts screamed, honed by decades of violence, and he threw himself sideways as bullets tore through the air where his head had been. The crystal glass exploded in his hand, wine and blood mixing as shards sliced his palm. The string quartet's music turned into screams, instruments clattering to the floor.
"Kill him, kill them all!" Vincent's voice rose above the chaos, transformed into something animal and desperate.
The chandelier exploded above them, thousands of crystal pieces raining down like deadly snow, refracting muzzle flashes into a nightmare kaleidoscope.
Marco went down first, three rounds punching through his chest before he could draw his weapon. His body jerked with each impact, expensive suit turning dark and wet. The table erupted in splinters as automatic fire raked across its surface.
Salvatore rolled behind an overturned chair, his hand already wrapped around the Beretta he always kept in his ankle holster.
The fake servants opened fire from their positions, crossfire turning the banquet hall into a kill box designed specifically for him. Salvatore's lieutenants, the ones still breathing, returned fire in confusion, not knowing who to trust, who had turned.
"You think you can just retire?" Vincent shouted from somewhere behind the chaos, his voice cracking with something like grief or madness.
Salvatore fired twice, dropping one of the fake servants with clinical precision, center mass, throat shot.
The man gurgled and fell, his weapon clattering away across blood-slicked marble. But there were too many, and they kept coming, kept firing, their bullets chewing through furniture and flesh with equal indifference.
This is how it ends, betrayed by the man I trusted most, fitting in its own twisted way.
A burning pain exploded in Salvatore's shoulder as a round punched through muscle and bone, spinning him around. He fired blindly, hitting nothing, hitting everything, the room a blur of smoke and screaming. Another bullet caught him in the leg, and he went down hard.
Vincent emerged from the smoke like a demon from hell, his suit immaculate despite the carnage, his gun trained on Salvatore's head.
"You built something too big, Sal, and you forgot the first rule," Vincent said, stepping over bodies, his shoes leaving bloody footprints.
Salvatore coughed, tasting copper, feeling his life leak out onto the expensive Italian marble he'd imported specifically for this room.
"What rule?" he managed to rasp, buying seconds he didn't have, already knowing the answer.
Vincent smiled, and it was the saddest thing Salvatore had ever seen, full of regret and ambition and terrible necessity.
"Never let your empire grow bigger than your ability to control it."
The gun barked once, twice, three times, each shot a thunderclap that drowned out everything else.
Salvatore felt his body jerk with the impacts, felt the cold spreading from his chest outward like winter claiming the world. The ceiling above him spun slowly, crystal fragments still falling in slow motion. He could hear Vincent giving orders, his voice fading into static.
Not like this, not after everything, not by his hand.
The last thing Salvatore Vieri saw before darkness claimed him was Vincent's face, twisted with something that might have been tears or might have been triumph. Then nothing, just the cold and the dark and the distant sound of sirens that would arrive too late.
The chandelier's remaining pieces finally fell, crashing down onto the banquet table with a sound like the world ending.