Chapter 3 - Playing with Fire
The Falcone estate didn't look like a mob fortress. It looked like a castle built by a nineteenth-century railroad tycoon who mistrusted the world and had the money to keep it at bay.
Perched on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan in Lake Forest, the stone mansion rose out of the gray morning mist like a sharp tooth. High wrought-iron gates swung open automatically as our motorcade approached, slamming shut behind us with a heavy, metallic thud that echoed through the dark pine trees lining the driveway.
I sat in the middle seat of the armored SUV, smoothing the fabric of my navy skirt.
Matteo sat across from me. He hadn't spoken a word since we left Dottie’s Diner, but his silence wasn't passive. He was reading through a thick leather folder handed to him by his driver, his thumb flicking through pages of financial statements with cold, methodical speed.
"Your music school’s building inspector problem has been resolved," Matteo said suddenly, without looking up from his papers.
I stiffened. "What did you do?"
"I called the Deputy Commissioner of Buildings," Matteo said calmly. "I reminded him that his daughter receives free cello instruction at your non-profit on Tuesday afternoons. The inspectors were recalled five minutes ago."
My jaw tightened. "I don't accept bribes, Mr. Falcone, and I don't use my students as leverage."
"It wasn't a bribe," Matteo said, finally closing the folder and fixing his intense gaze on me. "It was an correction of an abuse of power. Isabella’s father uses municipal departments like private attack dogs. I simply reminded the city who pays their pension funds."
"You're missing the point," I said, leaning forward until the space between our knees shrank to inches. "I built the Rhodes Center without your family's money, without Isabella’s foundation, and without corrupt city officials. Every brick in that building was paid for by chili cook-offs, tuition subsidies, and my own savings. The second you start 'resolving' my problems with a phone call, you validate every headline calling me a mob puppet."
Matteo leaned back against his leather seat, his eyes narrowing as he evaluated me.
"You have a very strange sense of self-preservation, Amelia," he murmured. "Most people in your position would be grateful for the shield."
"A shield becomes a cage if you aren't the one holding it," I retorted.
The SUV ground to a halt before the massive double doors of the estate.
A man in a impeccably tailored gray suit stood on the wide stone steps, holding a black umbrella against the rain. He had silver hair swept back from a narrow, aristocratic forehead, sharp blue eyes, and a silver pocket watch chain looped across his waistcoat.
Victor Salazar.
He looked like an elder statesman or a retired federal judge. But as he pulled the door of the SUV open, his eyes didn't land on Matteo. They landed on me, scanning my full figure, my rain-dampened hair, and my clearance-rack coat with a flicker of pure, unadulterated contempt.
"Matteo," Victor said, his voice smooth and cultured as aged brandy. "The board is waiting in the library. They are... extremely concerned about the press conference outside the diner."
"Let them wait," Matteo said, stepping out into the rain and offering his hand to me.
I didn't take it. I stepped out under my own power, my low heels clicking sharply against the wet stone steps.
Victor’s eyebrows twitched upward at my refusal, but his polite smile remained plastered across his face. "Miss Rhodes. I am Victor Salazar. I believe there has been a terrible misunderstanding regarding your charity’s financial filings this morning."
"It wasn't a misunderstanding, Mr. Salazar," I said, stopping on the top step so I was looking down at him. "It was bank fraud. Federal crime. Five to ten years in a penitentiary, depending on whether the prosecutor decides to pursue the wire fraud angle."
Victor’s smile didn't fade, but the skin around his eyes tightened into tiny, sharp folds. "A fiery spirit. Quite poetic for a piano teacher. But I assure you, our internal audit team discovered the discrepancy an hour ago. An unauthorized junior clerk in our logistics department accidentally routed the co-sponsorship wire through your organization's tax code."
"A junior clerk who had my outdated 2024 hyphenation string?" I asked sweetly. "That's fascinating. I didn't know junior clerks had access to the private, password-protected archives of the Maro Cultural Foundation."
Victor froze for a fraction of a second.
It was subtle—a minor pause in his breathing, a micro-tension in his left hand—but to someone who had spent fifteen years training her ear to catch a single mistimed sixteenth-note in a room full of thirty violinists, it was as loud as a cannon shot.
Matteo saw it too.
He didn't say a word. He simply placed his hand against the small of my back—a heavy, warm pressure that sent an electric jolt straight up my spine—and guided me through the massive oak doors into the grand foyer.
"Bring the Maro Foundation ledgers to my private study," Matteo commanded Victor over his shoulder. "And call Isabella. Tell her she needs to be here in thirty minutes."
Victor hesitated. "Matteo, Isabella’s father is deeply offended by—"
"Thirty minutes, Victor," Matteo repeated, his voice dropping into that terrifying, flat tone that admitted no argument. "Or I send Enzo to pick her up."
We walked up a sweeping marble staircase lit by a iron chandelier. The estate smelled of beeswax, old books, and tobacco.
Matteo led me into a massive, two-story study lined with dark walnut bookcases and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the violent gray waves of Lake Michigan. A fire crackled in a massive stone fireplace, casting deep orange shadows across a heavy oak desk covered in leather-bound ledgers.
"Sit," Matteo said, motioning to a high-backed leather armchair near the fire.
I pulled off my wet coat, draping it over the back of the chair, and sat down. "You knew before we got here, didn't you?"
Matteo walked over to a crystal decanter on a side table, poured two fingers of amber scotch into a heavy glass, and held it out to me.
"I don't drink while I'm working," I said.
He accepted the refusal without argument, taking a sip from the glass himself before setting it on his desk. "I suspected Victor six months ago, when my father’s old shipping contracts in Montreal began losing bidding wars to Maro Enterprises by margins of less than one percent."
My eyes widened. "Victor was feeding your bids to Isabella’s family."
"Yes," Matteo said, leaning his hip against the edge of the desk. "But I needed proof that would satisfy the syndicate board. In our world, Amelia, you don't execute an advisor of twenty years based on a suspicion. You execute him when you have the paper trail."
"And the fake engagement ring last night?" I asked, my heart taking a sudden, hard leap against my ribs. "Was that part of your trap?"
Matteo looked down at his glass, his expression unreadable in the firelight.
"The ring was supposed to go to Isabella," he said softly. "It was meant to lock her family into a merged escrow account that would give my auditors access to her father's books. But the stage manager was paid fifty thousand dollars by Victor to push a woman into my path at that exact second."
"Why?"
"Because Victor knew if I put the ring on Isabella's finger on live television, the escrow contract would legally seal instantly," Matteo said, raising his eyes to mine. "He needed a disruption. He hired a random staff member to stumble into me, create a scene, and delay the proposal by twenty-four hours so he could finish transferring twelve million dollars out of my Montreal accounts."
I stared at him, the pieces assembling in my mind with sudden, terrifying clarity.
"He didn't pick a random staff member," I whispered. "He picked me because my non-profit had an open grant file with the Maro Foundation. He thought I’d panic, run away, and take the fall for the initial fifty-thousand-dollar test transfer."
"He thought you were weak," Matteo said. He walked across the Persian rug until he was standing directly over my chair. He reached down, his long, scarred fingers lightly touching the silver music-note pendant resting at the base of my throat. His touch was burning hot against my cool skin. "He didn't know you were a woman who looks a Don in the eye and tells him his coffee is cold."
The air between us charged instantly, thick with an unspoken, dangerous heat that made my breath catch in my chest.
Before I could speak, the heavy study doors slammed open.
Isabella Maro stood on the threshold. She wore a tailored cream coat, dark sunglasses despite the rain, and a face twisted into pure, venomous fury.
"Matteo!" she shrieked, her heels clicking violently against the hardwood floor. "What is the meaning of this? Why is this... this fat, cheap peasant sitting in your private study?"
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I didn't flinch. I slowly rose from my armchair, adjusted the collar of my sweater, and faced her.
"The name is Amelia Rhodes, Miss Maro," I said smoothly. "And if you check your foundation’s tax ledgers, you'll find that 'this peasant' just found the four point two million dollars your father stole from the Falcone freight pension fund."
