Chapter 3 - BLOOD ON THE MARBLE
The iron gates of the Russo estate in Lake Forest hung wide open, creaking softly in the biting autumn wind.
Dante didn't wait for his convoy of three blacked-out Cadillac Escalades to come to a complete stop. As the lead SUV screeched across the wet cobblestones of the massive circular driveway, Dante kicked his door open and stepped out into the drizzle.
Behind him, eight fully armed Russo capos spilled out of the trailing vehicles, their trench coats concealing submachine guns and heavy-caliber sidearms. Their boots moved silently over the stone, disciplined and lethal.
The double oak doors of the mansion were unlocked.
Dante pushed them open. The grand foyer smelled not of the lavender and beeswax Emily loved, but of an expensive, suffocating French perfume: *Baccarat Rouge 540.* Vanessa’s signature scent.
In the center of the soaring marble rotunda, at the foot of the sweeping staircase, a dark pool of blood was smeared across three steps. A bucket of soapy water and a scrub brush sat abandoned nearby, the water turned a repulsive, watery pink. Someone had tried to clean the scene before the rain set in.
“Dante?”
A high, melodic voice echoed down from the mezzanine.
Vanessa Laurent descended the grand staircase with feline grace. She was dressed in a pristine ivory silk gown, her blonde hair swept up in an elaborate chignon. Around her slender neck hung a breathtaking cascade of yellow and white diamonds—the Russo Sunburst necklace, a one-of-a-kind heirloom Dante had commissioned for Emily on their first wedding anniversary.
Emily had worn it once, blushing and hiding her face against his shoulder because she thought it was too extravagant for a girl whose father had been a simple neighborhood baker.
Now, it rested on the collarbones of a viper.
“Dante, darling, thank God you’re back,” Vanessa breathed, hurrying down the remaining steps, her hands outstretched as if seeking comfort. “The most dreadful thing happened while you were in the city. The girl... Emily... she became hysterical. I tried to calm her down, but she wouldn’t listen. She insisted on leaving the grounds, and when she tried to carry her luggage down the main stairs, she tripped over her own feet.”
Vanessa reached Dante and tried to place her manicured hands against his lapels.
Dante did not move. He did not blink. He looked down at her hands, then slowly raised his gaze to meet her wide, pale blue eyes.
“You tried to clean the floor, Vanessa,” Dante said softly.
Vanessa’s expression flickered, a microsecond of panic vanishing behind a mask of delicate grief. “The staff... they were so traumatized by the sight of the blood. I didn't want you to return to such a gruesome scene after working so hard all day.”
“Where are the staff?” Dante asked.
“I... I gave them the evening off. To recover.”
“All twenty-four of them?” Dante took half a step forward.
Vanessa instinctively took half a step back. For the first time in the eighteen months she had worked her way into Dante’s peripheral vision, she sensed the sheer, predatory abyss lurking behind his aristocratic demeanor.
“Dante, you’re frightening me,” she murmured, touching the diamond necklace at her throat. “I handled everything. I called an ambulance as soon as I realized she was hurt. But really, she brought this on herself. She was never cut out to be the mistress of this house. She’s weak, Dante. She was always too fragile for a man of your stature.”
Dante’s hand shot out.
His fingers closed around Vanessa’s throat with the force of an iron vise.
Vanessa gasped, her eyes bulging as she was lifted onto her tiptoes. Her hands clawed desperately at his wrist, but Dante’s arm was an unyielding beam of steel. Behind him, Frank and the capos fanned out, their expressions carved from stone. Not a single man raised an eyebrow.
“Take off the necklace,” Dante commanded, his voice barely louder than the patter of rain against the stained glass above.
“D-Dante... please...” Vanessa choked out, tears of genuine terror finally spilling down her cheeks, ruining her pristine mascara.
Dante didn't wait. With his free hand, he gripped the platinum setting of the heirloom necklace and ripped it backward. The delicate links snapped with a sharp *crack*, gouging bloody scratches into the soft skin of Vanessa’s neck. She cried out in pain.
Dante dropped the diamonds onto the bloody marble step, where they clattered into the pink, soapy bucket water.
Then, he threw Vanessa to the floor.
She landed hard on her hands and knees, gasping for air, her ivory dress immediately soaking up the bloody residue on the stone.
“Where is her phone?” Dante asked, stepping over her until the polished toe of his dress shoe was inches from her face.
“I... I don't know what you're talking about,” Vanessa wheezed, trembling violently.
Frank stepped forward, holding up a manila folder he had retrieved from the foyer side table. “Boss. Look at this.”
Dante took the folder and flipped it open.
Inside was a standard Illinois marital dissolution petition. Attached was a forged signature page bearing the name *Dante Michael Russo*, rendered in black ink with chilling precision. Beneath his name were stipulations waiving all maternal rights, assigning full custody of any unborn issue to the father, and banishing the mother from the state under penalty of felony trespass.
Dante read the document once. Twice.
The paper began to shake in his hands—not from fear, but from a rage so total it threatened to consume his sanity.
“She thought I signed this,” Dante said, his voice dropping into a register that made the hair on the back of Frank’s neck stand up. “She stood in this hall, eight months pregnant with my children, looking at my name on this paper.”
He looked down at Vanessa, who was cowering against the banister.
“Who signed this, Vanessa?”
“You told me to prepare the paperwork months ago!” she lied frantically, her voice pitching into a shriek. “You said she was just an obligation! You said you needed an heir, not an anchor! I did this for us, Dante! For our future!”
Dante crouched down until his eyes were level with hers.
“I have killed men for looking at my wife with disrespect,” he whispered into her ear. “I have burned down entire city blocks because someone shorted her father’s bakery on flour deliveries. You made her wear the clothes of a servant. You made her scrub the floors she owned. And then you tried to murder my children on these stairs.”
Vanessa’s breath hitched. “C-children?”
May you like
“Twins,” Dante said, baring his teeth in a grotesque, terrifying smile. “Two of them, Vanessa. And if either of them ceases to breathe before I get back to that hospital, I am going to feed you to the stray dogs on the South Side piece by piece.”
***
