Chapter 6 - The Poison in the Household
By three in the morning, the mansion had finally quieted. The high-profile guests had departed in their chauffeured limousines, their trunks loaded with bespoke gifts and favors, completely oblivious to the silent war unfolding beneath the surface of the Moretti estate.
Clara Bennett lay in the massive bed, her daughter curled tightly against her side under three layers of down blankets. Clara’s hands were thickly coated in healing ointment and wrapped in clean, breathable white gauze. For the first time in fourteen months, her fingers didn't throb with icy pain. The room was so warm she didn't need to wear two sweaters to bed.
Yet, she could not sleep.
Every creak of the ancient timbers in the ceiling made her pulse spike. She had spent the last year of her life waiting for the other shoe to drop—waiting for the landlord to evict her, waiting for the debt collectors to pound on the door, waiting for the cold to make Lily sick again.
Across the room, the heavy oak door opened without a sound.
Clara stiffened, her breath catching in her throat. She instinctively pulled the blanket higher over Lily’s shoulders.
It wasn't Gabriel.
A shadowed figure slipped through the cracked door, moving with quiet, frantic haste toward the vanity dresser where Clara had placed her small cloth handbag—the only possession she had carried up from the basement.
“Who’s there?” Clara whispered, her voice trembling.
The figure stopped, then hissed in frustration. The silhouette turned, and the dying embers of the hearth illuminated the sharp, venomous features of Margaret Collins.
Margaret had escaped Dante’s temporary holding area. Her hair was disheveled, her stockings torn, and her uniform stained with grease from the service tunnels. In her right hand, she held a heavy velvet pouch.
“Shut your mouth, you little gutter rat,” Margaret spat in a vicious whisper, lunging toward the bed.
Clara tried to scramble backward, but the heavy bedding slowed her down. “What are you doing? Mr. Moretti locked you up!”
“Mr. Moretti is an arrogant fool who thinks he can run Chicago with sentimentality!” Margaret snarled. She reached into the velvet pouch and pulled out a heavy diamond choker—a famous Moretti family heirloom kept in the second-floor gallery safe. “You think you’re moving up in the world? You think the Don is going to make you his little charity project? When Dante finds this necklace inside your daughter’s toy crate tomorrow morning, you’ll be thrown into the frozen river before sunrise!”
Margaret had intended to frame Clara for grand larceny. If Gabriel believed Clara was an opportunistic thief who had exploited his momentary softness, Clara would be eliminated, and Margaret could execute her escape with Rossi’s extraction team.
Margaret raised her arm to shove the diamond necklace beneath the mattress.
Before her hand could touch the linen, a hand like an iron shackle closed around her wrist.
The snap of bone was clean and sickeningly audible.
Margaret let out an agonized scream that was instantly cut off as Gabriel Moretti stepped out from the shadows beside the heavy drapes. He twisted her fractured wrist with casual, mechanical precision, driving Margaret down to her knees onto the Persian rug.
The diamond necklace fell from her limp fingers, pooling like cold fire on the floor.
“You’re getting predictable, Margaret,” Gabriel said, his voice entirely devoid of warmth.
The master bedroom doors swung wide open. Dante entered, flanked by four armed security guards with tactical weapons drawn.
“I told you she knew the maintenance tunnels behind the wine cellar, boss,” Dante said casually, holstering his sidearm. “She took the exact bait you left in the auxiliary safe.”
Margaret was weeping now, clutching her broken wrist against her ribs, her face pressed into the floor carpet. “Gabriel... please! Victor Rossi will kill me! He has my brother! He has my brother in Hammond! If I didn't get Julian Bennett’s ledger, he promised to skin him alive!”
Gabriel looked down at her with pure, undiluted disgust.
“You chose to protect your brother by trying to freeze a three-year-old child to death,” Gabriel said, stepping back so his polished shoes didn't touch her. “You chose poorly.”
May you like
He turned to Dante. “Take her to the subterranean cells in the east compound. The ones with no heating vents. Let her see how cold Chicago gets in December. And call our counter-intelligence team. It’s time we pay Victor Rossi a long-overdue visit.”
---
