Chapter 8 - The Interrogation of HeinrichWe didn't take her back to Buffalo immediately. Her blood-oxygen levels were too unstable for a high-altitude flight, and Dr. Vance—who I had patched through on an encrypted satellite link from his office in Erie County—ordered us to stabilize her at a secure, private medical facility in downtown Chicago.

By evening, Julia was resting in a sterile, climate-controlled ICU room, hooked up to an advanced ventilator and intravenous saline drips. Her eyes were closed, her breathing deep and electronically assisted, monitored by two trusted medical professionals I had handpicked and vetted with my own pistol.

I stood outside the glass partition, watching her chest rise and fall in a steady, artificial rhythm, when Pietro walked down the corridor, holding a leather briefcase.

"She's stable, boss," Pietro said quietly, standing beside me. "Vance says the crisis has peaked for now, but she needs absolute rest. Any more exertion like that trip, and her lungs will shut down permanently."

I didn't take my eyes off Julia. "And Heinrich?"

Pietro’s expression tightened. "We caught him. We didn't go to his warehouse—we intercepted him at O'Hare airport trying to board a one-way flight to Zurich. He's currently tied to a chair in the basement of our safehouse two miles from here."

I slowly turned away from the glass, the grief in my chest hardening back into the cold, calculating steel of the Mafia boss I was built to be.

"Let's go talk to him," I said.

The safehouse basement smelled of damp concrete, bleach, and fear.

Heinrich—a middle-aged man with thinning blond hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and the nervous ticks of a career academic who had sold his soul to the highest-bidding syndicate—was strapped securely to a wooden chair. His face was pale, his hands shaking as he stared at the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.

When I walked down the concrete stairs, my boots echoing in the confined space, Heinrich flinched violently.

"Mancuso," Heinrich stammered, his German accent thick with panic. "Look, whatever Moretti promised you—I'm just a contractor! I formulate compounds, I don't ask questions!"

I walked up to him, pulled up a metal folding chair, and sat down directly across from him. I didn't raise my voice. I didn't pull a gun. I just looked at him with a stillness that made him swallow hard.

"Heinrich," I said softly. "Do you know what pulmonary bronchiolitis obliterans is?"

Heinrich blinked, confused by the pivot. "It's... it's a severe inflammatory condition of the bronchioles. Usually caused by inhalation of toxic industrial chemicals, mustard gas derivatives, or—"

"Or aerosolized heavy-metal particulates designed to mimic a natural respiratory failure," I finished for him.

Heinrich’s eyes darted toward Pietro, then back to me. "I... I told you, I follow formulas—"

"You formulated the batch that was used in the hit on my car five months ago," I said, leaning forward. "A batch that my wife accidentally breathed in while she was uncovering Moretti's supply chain."

Heinrich’s jaw went slack. "Your... your wife?"

"She has twenty-eight percent lung capacity left, Heinrich," I said, my voice dropping an octave into a terrifying whisper. "Every breath she takes feels like inhaling broken glass. She is dying in a hospital room upstairs because of the poison you cooked up in your lab."

Heinrich shook his head frantically, his chair rattling against the concrete floor. "No! No, wait! You've got it wrong! Moretti didn't order that compound!"

I froze. The room seemed to contract around us.

"What did you say?"

"Moretti didn't commission the aerosolized heavy-metal formula!" Heinrich cried out, tears of sheer terror springing to his eyes. "Moretti only handles conventional freight and smuggling! He doesn't have the capital or the infrastructure for chemical weapon design!"

Pietro stepped forward, his hand resting menacingly on his pistol. "Don't bullshit us, chemist. Moretti's cufflink was found at the railcar where your clean-up crew operated."

"Because Moretti was renting the space to them!" Heinrich shrieked, ducking his head as if expecting a blow. "It wasn't Moretti! It was an internal contract! Someone inside your own organization—someone with high-level clearance and millions in liquid capital—hired my lab directly through a shell company!"

The air left the room.

My heart hammered against my ribs, not with shock, but with the sickening realization of a trap that had been laid for me months ago.

"Name," I demanded, grabbing Heinrich by the collar of his shirt and pulling him forward until our noses were an inch apart. "Give me the name."

Heinrich choked, his eyes bulging. "I don't know his real name! I only ever dealt with his proxy—a man who carried a silver signet ring with a broken scale emblem! He wired the funds through Swiss accounts and met me twice in person!"

I released him, letting him slam back against the chair as I stood up slowly.

A silver signet ring with a broken scale emblem.

I knew that crest. I had seen it on legal documents, corporate boardrooms, and executive stationary across the city for a decade.

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