GHOST OF THE GODFATHER

CHAPTER 3: THE TREMBLING PREDATOR

The rain showed no sign of letting up. Beneath the cold downpour, Kalen crawled backward, dragging himself away from Vargas’s corpse, which was still spilling the last remnants of life into the mud. He stared at “Leo” standing there, swaying yet upright, surrounded by a terrifying aura.

Kalen’s hand groped at his ankle. There, hidden inside his tactical boot, was a pocket-sized backup pistol.

“You… you’re a demon,” Kalen hissed, his breath ragged. “What did you do to the real Leo?”

Vittorio stared at his own hands, trembling violently. His vision began to double. The surrounding trees seemed to melt, their shapes warping into dark figures that whispered to him. Withdrawal hallucinations were starting to assault his nervous system.

“The real Leo died from the dose you gave him,” Vittorio rasped. His voice sounded like sandpaper scraping against wood. “And believe me, he was grateful that I took over his unfinished business.”

Kalen noticed the shaking in Vittorio’s body. A thin smile crept across his face as he sensed an opening. “You can’t even hold that knife straight anymore. Look at yourself, Leo. You’re broken.”

Driven by desperation, Kalen moved in a flash, yanking the .22 caliber pistol from his boot. “Die, you worthless junkie!”

Vittorio did not dodge. Instead, he stepped forward in one long stride just as the muzzle rose. With a minimal motion that wasted not an inch of energy, he caught Kalen’s trigger finger mid-pull. A single outward twist, and the bone punched through the skin.

“AAAAAGGGHHH!” Kalen howled. The pistol fell into the mud before it could spit a bullet.

Vittorio did not stop there. He kicked Kalen’s knee, forcing the man to drop to his knees in front of him. Then Vittorio picked up the tiny pistol and aimed it straight at Kalen’s forehead, his hand still trembling, yet locked with lethal precision.

“One finger for one question,” Vittorio said coldly. “Why did you want Leo dead tonight? Answer honestly, or I start breaking the rest of your fingers.”

Clutching his shattered hand, Kalen’s face turned ashen beneath a sheen of cold sweat. “You know why… the Ravelli family… they didn’t want a disgrace like you to stay alive!”

“Lies,” Vittorio cut in. He pressed the muzzle harder against Kalen’s forehead. “A family wouldn’t send two Black Ops executives just to eliminate a street junkie. This is about something bigger. Who is The Circle?”

Kalen’s eyes went wide. The name was taboo, something no outsider should know, least of all Leo Ravelli, the trash they had written off. “How… how do you know about them?”

“I heard you talking while I was still wrapped in that plastic,” Vittorio lied. In truth, a hazy memory from Leo’s brain cells had just pulsed to life, sending flashes of a silver circle logo on a skyscraper. “Talk, Kalen. Who are they?”

“They are everything!” Kalen screamed hysterically. “The Circle decides who ascends the throne and who rots in the grave! They’re the ones funding Antonio!”

Vittorio felt a surge of emotion that was not his own. Deep hatred, betrayal, and a burning rage that belonged to Leo Ravelli rose from the depths of his soul. He could feel Leo’s memories, the moment his own father, a member of the honor council, cast him into the streets so their business with The Circle would not be tainted by the existence of a “defective” son.

“So they’re using Antonio as a puppet to get rid of me?” Vittorio murmured.

“Antonio is not a puppet!” Kalen shot back between coughs. “He is the future. And you… you were just a sacrifice for Project Ouroboros. They needed someone to blame when the data leaked!”

“What data?” Vittorio demanded.

Kalen laughed bitterly, his voice swallowed by the sound of helicopter blades now dangerously close. Wind from the rotors began to shake the branches above them. “The data you stole from your father’s safe! Did you really think you could hide it forever?”

Vittorio froze for a moment. So Leo had not been a passive addict after all. In his final days, the unfortunate young man had tried to fight back by stealing something immensely valuable.

“Where is the data?” Vittorio asked softly, his voice low and nearly a whisper, yet heavy with menace.

“Go to hell, Leo!” Kalen spat toward Vittorio’s face. “You’ll never be able to open it. The Circle will level this city just to find that thing!”

Vittorio calmly wiped the spit from his cheek. The hallucinations worsened. He saw Antonio’s face, his old friend who had betrayed him fifty years ago, overlapping with Kalen’s. The thirst for blood became unbearable.

“Thank you for the information,” Vittorio said.

“Wait! You said you’d let me live!” Kalen screamed as he saw Vittorio’s finger tighten on the trigger.

“I lied,” Vittorio replied flatly. “That is the first lesson you should learn in your next life. Never trust a Valdieri.”

Click.

The backup pistol jammed. Mud clogging the mechanism stopped the firing pin cold.

Kalen realized it and tried to rise for a final act of resistance. Vittorio no longer relied on firearms. With the last of his adrenaline, he smashed the pistol’s grip into Kalen’s temple with full force.

Thud.

Kalen collapsed, still conscious. Vittorio dropped the useless gun and wrapped both gaunt hands around Kalen’s throat. Using his body weight, he forced the man’s trachea down into the mud.

“Look into my eyes, Kalen,” Vittorio whispered as he felt the pulse in his opponent’s neck weaken. “Carry this message to hell. Tell everyone you meet there… that Vittorio Valdieri has returned.”

Kalen’s eyes bulged one last time before the light within them went out. His body convulsed briefly, then went limp.

Vittorio released his grip and dropped to a seated position beside the two bodies, now slowly being swallowed by mud. He gasped for air. His lungs burned. His entire body shook violently, not just from the cold, but from the fentanyl side effects ravaging his nervous system.

“Damn… this body is absolute trash,” Vittorio muttered to himself.

He tried to stand, but the world spun. The image of the real Leo appeared before him, a thin young man with injection marks on his arms, staring at him with a sad smile.

“Avenge me, Don…” the apparition whispered before vanishing into the wind.

Vittorio shook his head to clear his thoughts. He searched Kalen’s pockets for anything useful. A lighter, a few soggy bills, and a phone with a shattered screen. Nothing truly valuable.

Suddenly, a massive spotlight from the sky swept over the area. Blinding white light cut through the forest darkness, casting long, terrifying shadows between the trees.

The helicopter was now directly overhead. Vittorio could hear shouted orders through a megaphone, muffled by the storm.

“Target detected at the excavation site! Alpha Team, prepare to deploy! Secure the subject, alive or dead!”

Vittorio stood on trembling legs. He held the jammed .22 pistol, though he knew it was useless. He positioned himself between Vargas’s and Kalen’s bodies and stared straight into the helicopter’s blinding light.

Blood streamed from his temple, mixing with rain and black mud. He looked like a forest wraith crawling out of a grave.

“You came at the wrong time,” Vittorio muttered, grinning at the light.

He knew he could not fight a full team in this condition. He needed shelter. He needed a plan. And most of all, he needed to purge the poison from this body before it killed him a second time.

Vittorio turned and began running into the thicker thorny brush. He did not care if the thorns tore into his skin. Pain was the only thing that convinced him he was still alive.

Behind him, he heard ropes dropping from the helicopter and the heavy thud of boots hitting the ground. The hunters had landed.

“After him! Don’t let him reach the river!” a commanding voice shouted.

Vittorio pushed his fragile heart harder, vanishing into the forest’s dark embrace. Behind him, tactical flashlights sliced through the night, hunting the wounded predator.

He was Vittorio Valdieri.

And tonight, he would teach them that death is never the end of a war.