Chapter 3 - The Chicago Viper's Venom
Two floors above the grand foyer, inside the master guest suite of the west wing, the sound of breaking crystal was loud and continuous.
Isabella Romano hurled an antique Baccarat perfume atomizer against the marble fireplace. The heavy crystal shattered into glittering dust, filling the vast, vaulted bedroom with the suffocating, heavy scent of damask roses and patchouli.
"Filthy little whore!" Isabella shrieked, pacing across the Aubusson rug, her white silk robe billowing behind her like the wings of an enraged swan. "A common maid! A woman who scrubs my bathroom floor!"
Standing near the double doors, dressed in an immaculate charcoal suit with a flat leather holster visible beneath his armpit, was Marco Rossi.
Marco had been Vincent Romano’s personal enforcer for twenty years before being assigned as Isabella’s private bodyguard in New York. His face was broad, scarred across the nose from an old bar fight in Cicero, and his pale blue eyes held the dull, calculating stillness of a crocodile waiting beneath river mud.
"Lower your voice, Isabella," Marco said, his gravelly voice flat and emotionless. "The estate walls are three feet thick, but the servants talk. If Alessandro hears you smashing his grandmother’s antiques, it won't help your position."
"My position?" Isabella spun on her bare heels, her manicured nails digging into her palms so hard they nearly drew blood. "Did you see his face down there, Marco? Did you see the way he looked at that little street rat? He dropped to his knees! Don Alessandro Moretti, the man who put three Lucchese capos into the concrete pylons of the Verrazzano Bridge, knelt in front of a child wearing duck socks!"
Marco leaned his head back against the mahogany door, chewing on an unlit toothpick. "I saw."
"He looked at the maid like she was made of porcelain!" Isabella hissed, stepping toward him, her chest heaving beneath the silk. "For six months, I have slept in the opposite wing of this mausoleum! For six months, he has kissed my hand like a dead nun at Easter, poured me one glass of wine at dinner, and disappeared into his study until sunrise! I thought he was cold! I thought he had ice in his veins!"
"He has ice for business," Marco noted. "Not for his own blood."
"You don't think..." Isabella froze, her eyes widening in sudden, sickening horror. "The child... you don't think it's his?"
"The kid has his mother’s eyes," Marco said simply. "Elena Moretti had those same huge, dark, sad eyes. Everyone in the Commission knows the portraits. When the old Don was alive, he kept a painting of Elena in the boardroom. The kid looks like a miniature version of the painting."
"No," Isabella breathed, stumbling back toward the four-poster bed. "No! That’s impossible! Alessandro was celibate for three years after his brother was killed in Queens! He never took a mistress! My father ran background checks on every woman in his orbit!"
"Evidently," Marco murmured, "your father missed the kitchen staff."
Isabella lunged for the bedside table, snatched her gold-plated encrypted iPhone, and jammed her thumb against the speed dial.
The line rang twice before a deep, raspy voice answered from a private office twelve hundred miles away in Chicago.
"Isabella," Vincent Romano said. The background noise carried the faint clinking of silverware and the murmur of heavy Italian dialects. "Why are you calling on an open channel before breakfast?"
"Papa," Isabella choked out, her voice shifting instantly from furious screeching to the frantic, trembling whimper of a spoiled princess who had just been denied her inheritance. "The wedding is in jeopardy. We have a catastrophe."
The line went dead silent for three beats.
When Vincent spoke again, all background noise had ceased. The door to his Chicago office had clearly been closed.
"Explain yourself. Carefully."
"There is a maid in the house," Isabella said, her words tumbling over one another in a frantic rush. "She has a three-year-old daughter. Alessandro just stopped me in the hallway—in front of the butler, in front of the guards! He ordered me to my room like a naughty schoolgirl, and he’s calling his private doctor for a genetic test!"
"A child?" Vincent’s voice dropped into an icy, gravelly growl. "Whose child?"
"He thinks it’s his, Papa! He looked at the girl and called her his blood!"
A heavy sigh drifted through the satellite connection, followed by the metallic click of Vincent’s gold lighter igniting an expensive Churchill cigar.
"Listen to me, Isabella," Vincent said, every syllable measured and chilling. "We have spent three years positioning this alliance. The Moretti family controls the four deep-water berths at Red Hook and the container terminals in Newark. Our syndicate in Chicago is bleeding fifty million a year because the federal authorities have choked the rail yards. We need those ports."
"I know, Papa, but—"
"If Alessandro marries you," Vincent continued, ignoring her interruption, "the marriage contract gives the Romano family a thirty percent operational stake in the waterfront holding company. And within twelve months, after Alessandro suffers an... unfortunate accident on his yacht... you become the sole legal guardian of the Moretti estate as his grieving widow."
Isabella swallowed hard, her eyes darting toward Marco, who gave a slow, approving nod.
"That was the plan," Isabella whispered. "That was always the plan."
"A child changes the mathematics," Vincent said, the smoke audibly escaping his lips. "Under New York state probate law, and under the Commission’s ancient charter, a legitimate or acknowledged biological heir inherits the seat ahead of a surviving spouse. If that girl is proven to be Alessandro’s daughter, she becomes the sole beneficiary of the Moretti blood trust."
"Then what do we do?" Isabella demanded, her fingers clutching the phone until her knuckles turned white. "He called Dr. Vane! The doctor is on his way right now!"
"Marco is there?"
"Yes, Papa. He’s standing right in front of me."
"Put him on."
Isabella shoved the phone toward the enforcer. Marco took it, pressing the receiver to his ear.
"Don Vincent."
"Marco," the old mobster spoke from Chicago, his voice carrying the finality of a death warrant. "The doctor cannot be allowed to deliver a positive test to the Commission. But more importantly, the maid and the child cannot remain inside that house to cloud the Don’s judgment."
"Alessandro has forty soldiers on the perimeter, Boss," Marco said realistically. "The estate is a fortress. If I pull a trigger in this hallway, I won't make it to the front gate."
"I am not asking you to pull a trigger in the hallway, you idiot," Vincent snarled. "Use your head. Alessandro is proud. The Morettis have always been obsessed with family honor and purity. If the child is his, he will protect her. But what if the child is proven to be a fraud? What if the maid is caught trying to steal from the estate?"
A slow, vicious smile spread across Marco’s scarred mouth.
"A setup," Marco murmured.
"Plant something that cannot be explained away," Vincent instructed. "The Moretti family heirloom. The diamond brooch that belonged to Alessandro’s mother. The one kept in the display cabinet in the library. If the maid is arrested for grand larceny before the doctor can even draw the blood, Alessandro’s pride will do the rest. He will throw her into the street himself."
"And if he doesn't?" Marco asked.
"Then we activate the strike team we have staged in Jersey City," Vincent said coldly. "And we take the estate by storm before the week is out. Do it now, Marco."
The call clicked off.
Marco handed the phone back to Isabella.
May you like
"You heard your father," Marco said, adjusting his cuffs. "Where does Alessandro keep the key to the library display cabinet?"
Isabella’s red lips curved into a cruel, triumphant sneer. "In the top drawer of his desk. And I know exactly when Mr. Bruno takes the morning linen count."
