The Confession

"Here," Marco pushed his thumb to the screen pad in order to open the door to the dungeon. "For your cooperation," he led me to a series of doors marked with numbers, and I smiled once the realisation of what was behind them hit me.

It had been two days since the auction, and this morning Marco had barged into my bathroom while I was taking a shower to tell me that we were going out again. Of course, I was outraged.

"You could have WAITED until I was FINISHED!" I screamed at him, making sure to stay behind the steamed area of the glass. He just scoffed at me and left the room, causing me to sigh in relief. The man was an absolute buffoon, but we had somehow been getting along better since the auction. It wasn't that we were tolerable towards each other, it was just that we'd accepted that the other was in the same vicinity and decided to cope with it. Still, the situation was far from ideal.

Now, as I was standing before the first open door, staring at the auctioneer inside the room, I smiled to myself. "Make sure the others can hear this."

The guard protecting the door nodded and I began to stalk my way towards my prey. "Hello, Lina."

She looked up at me with a glare, almost like she wanted to tear me apart with her eyes. Actually, I think that's exactly what she wanted. Too bad for her though, I'd seen right through her act since the beginning. "How did you know?"

"Woman's intuition," I tapped my temple and smiled. "You didn't honestly think it was a foolproof plan, did you?" my tongue clicked thrice and my arms crossed. "You poor, naive idiot."

"It was your plan!" she screamed, thrashing against the seat where her restraints were holding her down. "You were the one who told me to get my imbecile husband to bid on that stupid kid in the first place!"

"Well you wanted to get rid of him, Lina, it was the best way. Jeez, forgive me for being a good contributor," I rolled my eyes and waved my hand around. "I never told you to get Marco shot, though."

After we'd left the auction Marco took Andreas to a place that I could only assume was another dungeon, judging by its high security. What we couldn't anticipate was being ambushed on the way back by the cops and getting shot at. I knew there would be a rain of bullets. Lina had called the police when we'd left the auction house and it took them forever to find us, but finally, they did, and it could not have gone more south.

I had been expecting a little showdown, maybe Marco getting arrested for a bit and then I'd get ready to start taking the whole family down while he was away. I knew he would make bail because he obviously had some police working for him. Except, he didn't. There was a new chief of police who wasn't fond of the Mafia at all, so the cops took a different tune.

Then a new squad car showed up, but it was a little gang from a different district who also wasn't fond of Marco. Lina had called them with a tip that their leader was getting arrested and Marco DiBiancci was involved. The whole idea had been to cause confusion so I could get the upper hand, but that wasn't how it went. I almost got a bullet in the ribs, and if it hadn't been for Marco, I'd probably be stuck in bed with painful breathing and trying to recover in time. Now it was almost like that, except Marco demanded that I take care of him even though he was clearly fine.

"That was an accident."

"Was it, though?" I pulled out her cellphone from the coat that had been ripped off her and looked through its contents. "Your text messages confirm your story, but what exactly did you mean by 'make sure the girl gets it?'?"

Lina looked away from me because we both knew I had my answer. That day in the restaurant, I made sure to confront her as soon as the guards had left the room. She had been the mastermind behind the money transfer, and she'd had her husband deal in the human trafficking business so he could resell the people later. The restaurant had just been a cover from the beginning and I'd figured that out the moment I saw the painting in the dining area of the restaurant.

I just hadn't figured out that the painting was specific to detail human trafficking connections, but once I'd told Lina I knew about her fake pregnancy, she spilled like a cup of water. Being the mastermind that I am, I told her of a way to get rid of her husband now that Marco already suspected he was cheating him out of money. The rest fell into place, and Marco didn't hesitate to dispose of Andreas as he saw fit, even with a bullet hole in his side.

Yes it was true that her husband had gone to the club house, but that was to find a new buyer for a woman he'd gotten his hands on the week prior. I'd convinced Lina to trick him into thinking they already had a buyer and that he had to get someone else immediately to fill in her spot. Nobody anticipated that it would be a child. If he'd chosen someone different, I would've convinced Marco to spare him, but the sick fucker decided he wanted someone defenceless, so he had all the rights to receive the same treatment.

Marco had no idea that they were making a side hustle in the human trafficking business, and considering how the DiBiancci's never held auctions for their newly acquired humans, it was clear that the person who Andreas was buying the humans from or for, wasn't DiBiancci clan. Either way you looked at it, Marco would consider Andreas his enemy, and since Lina was ambitious, she'd be free to have the business all for herself.

That's when the rest of my plan came into play. In order to pit the Italians against each other, I needed them to fight other people, then I would start introducing doubt and making them think there was someone betraying them from the inside.

It was only after seeing the painting in the auction place that I realised just how many free shadow people operated on DiBiancci turf. I assumed that this was allowed because they would pay Marco—or whomever— a fee of operation. All I needed to do was make Marco think that there was someone defying him, and as for the other party, I just needed them to think that the DiBiancci's were tyrants.

I made Lina tell the gang that their leader had been arrested and that Marco was behind the arrest. Once they showed up, the rest would fall into place. What I didn't count on was the gang members firing upon sight, and by that time, the police had already gotten to our location so when they heard shots fired, they assumed it was more people from the DiBiancci clan that Marco had called. There was the motive for his arrest.

I also hadn't anticipated Lina to get bold and tell someone to wipe me out. That simply could not do, and although I was thankful to Marco for stepping in front of me, I was also upset because he couldn't die yet. For one, I wanted to be the one to kill him, for two, he had to tell me his secrets first. How was I supposed to take over the Italian Mafia if I didn't know how it worked?

During the gun showdown, I managed to get a phone and record a short video, which I then sent to my dad. This redirected him towards the Russians, and even though it was reckless of me to make him start a war with Russia, I was confident that this would buy me more time. Also, when they both saw what I had to offer, their enmity would cease immediately. It's not like I would be the first to make two guns fire bullets down each other's barrel.

"I guess you're going to kill me now, right?"

"Don't sound so pitiful, Lina, of course I'm not going to kill you!" I rolled my eyes before taking a fistful of her hair. "You tried to have me murdered, though, and that can't go without consequences, so I'll cut you a deal."

"What?" She looked into my eyes, and seeing the fear dilate her pupils filled me with a kind of sick joy. Was this what Marco felt like? I guess it came with the territory, right?

"I have a little recorder here. Confess to what you did, and I'll make sure you're treated the way a Bottiano should be," my thumb pressed the little red dot for the recording button and I waited for her to begin.

"My name is Lina Bottiano and I confess to being the mastermind behind my husband's scheme. I told Andreas to get into the human trafficking business with someone, violating our pact with the DiBiancci's…"