Chapter 3 - The Audit of Lies
The rain began at noon, turning Lake Michigan into a churning sea of pewter and foam.
Inside the private office of Ashworth Fine Art on Superior Street in Chicago, thirty miles south of the estate, the air smelled of expensive oil paint, beeswax, and damp wool.
Alessandro sat in a deep leather armchair in the corner of the gallery’s back room. Across from him, standing by a heavy iron paper shredder, was Mateo—his head of security, a man who had taken a bullet for Alessandro’s father in Detroit twenty years ago.
Mateo threw a black leather binder onto the glass coffee table between them.
“Vance hit the motherlode, Boss,” Mateo grunted, wiping rain from his graying beard. “It’s bad. Worse than you thought.”
Alessandro didn't pick up the binder immediately. He took a sip of dark espresso from a tiny porcelain cup. “Give me the headlines.”
“Genevieve Ashworth isn't an art curator from Boston,” Mateo said, his voice flat. “Her real name is Genevieve Corvini. She’s the youngest daughter of Arthur Corvini.”
The espresso cup paused halfway to Alessandro’s lips.
Arthur Corvini was the old tiger of the Detroit syndicate—a ruthless, aging mobster who had lost two shipping docks and three distribution hubs to the Rienzi family during the Great Lakes border war eight years ago. The truce between the Rienzi and Corvini families had been held together by cold distance and mutual threat.
“Arthur’s daughter,” Alessandro said quietly.
“She was legally adopted by an aunt in Massachusetts when she was twelve to keep her name off the federal wiretaps,” Mateo explained, pointing at the binder. “Vance traced the funding for this gallery. The five million dollars she used to open this place three years ago didn't come from a Boston trust fund. It was laundered through three shell corporations registered in Grand Cayman, all owned by Arthur Corvini’s second-in-command, Marcus Vane.”
Alessandro set the cup down. The ceramic clicked sharply against the glass table.
Fourteen months ago, Genevieve had “accidentally” bumped into him at a charity benefit, spilling champagne on his jacket and charming him with her quick wit and apparent indifference to his dark reputation. It hadn't been a chance encounter. It was an insertion.
“What’s the play?” Alessandro asked.
“Corvini’s health is failing,” Mateo said, leaning forward. “His sons are stupid and violent, but Genevieve is the sharp one. The plan was long-term. She marries you, gets legal access to the Rienzi trust accounts, maps out our shipping routes through Lake Superior, and then… well, Vance found encrypted comms between her and Marcus Vane from three nights ago.”
“And what did the comms say?”
Mateo looked at the floor for a second before meeting his boss’s eyes. “They aren't planning to wait for a quiet divorce after the wedding, Boss. They’re planning an extraction on the night of the ceremony. A heavy hit on the estate while the family is gathered under one roof. She clears the security codes from the inside, Corvini’s boys come through the lake gate, and they wipe the Rienzi line clean.”
The room went dead silent save for the drumming of rain against the skylight above.
Alessandro sat motionless. His mind didn't race with anger; it hardened into a cold, diamond-like focus. For sixteen months, he had shared his bed with a woman who was actively drafting his execution order. He had brought her into his home, allowed her near his capos, introduced her to his aging father.
And if a three-year-old child hadn't overheard her whispering on a patio, he would have walked into the church in twenty-eight days with his head in a noose.
“Boss?” Mateo asked softly. “Do I take care of her tonight? We can make her disappear from the highway on her way back to the estate. No noise.”
“No,” Alessandro said instantly.
Mateo blinked. “No?”
“If Genevieve vanishes, Corvini knows the play is blown,” Alessandro said, standing up and buttoning his coat. “He goes back into the shadows, hides behind his layers, and tries something else two months from now. I don't want a delayed war, Mateo. I want to cut Arthur Corvini’s head off once and for all.”
“What do you want to do?”
May you like
Alessandro walked over to a heavy oil painting hanging on the gallery wall—a depiction of a storm tearing through a fleet of wooden ships. He touched the gilded frame with a single fingertip.
“We let her play her game,” Alessandro whispered. “We let her think she’s leading us to the slaughterhouse. And on the night of the wedding, we turn her stage into her family’s graveyard.”
