Chapter 2 - THE PAPERWORK IN THE STUDY
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The silence in the dining room was so absolute you could hear the wax dripping from the candles.
Twenty-six family members sat like stone statues along the thirty-foot mahogany table.
Gabriel Moretti did not move a single muscle in his jaw.
His dark eyes remained fixed on Isabella Romano, burning with a lethal, suffocating intensity.
Isabella stood by the French doorway, her red silk purse clutched in both hands, savoring the devastation she had just unleashed.
Nonna Antonella stepped away from her chair, her antique pearl necklace clicking against her black bodice.
She was eighty-four years old and stood barely five feet tall, but in that moment, she commanded the entire room.
“Answer me, Gabriel,” Antonella repeated, her voice cutting through the stillness like a cold razor.
“What did you promise this girl about my home?”
Gabriel slowly pushed his chair back, the heavy carved wood groaning against the antique Persian rug.
He stood up, towering over the table in his tailored charcoal suit, his shoulders wide and imposing.
“Isabella is talking nonsense because she’s upset, Nonna,” Gabriel said, his tone smooth and dismissive.
“She doesn't know anything about our family assets.”
Isabella let out a sharp, mocking laugh that echoed toward the gilded ceiling.
“Nonsense, Gabriel?”
She reached into her designer clutch and pulled out a folded white envelope with blue embossed lettering.
“Do you want me to read the appraisal letter from Berkshire Hathaway, sweetheart?”
Every relative at that table turned their head toward the paper in Isabella’s hand.
Uncle Vincenzo dropped his silver butter knife onto his porcelain plate with a loud clatter.
My heart felt like it had dropped straight through the floorboards.
This estate had belonged to the Moretti family since 1928.
Gabriel’s grandfather, Don Vittorio Moretti, had built these limestone walls with stone brought directly from Sicily.
It wasn't just a mansion on the Gold Coast.
It was the fortress where seven generations had celebrated weddings, mourned funerals, and survived gangland wars.
“Show me that paper,” Antonella demanded, holding out her liver-spotted hand.
Gabriel moved with sudden, violent speed, crossing the space between them and grabbing Isabella’s wrist.
His fingers tightened around her skin until her knuckles turned ghostly white.
“Give it to me,” Gabriel snarled beneath his breath.
“Let her hand it to me, Gabriel,” Antonella’s voice rang out, louder and firmer than any bullet.
Gabriel froze.
He looked at his grandmother, his chest heaving beneath his crisp white shirt.
Never in thirty-five years had Gabriel Moretti openly defied Antonella in front of the bloodline.
Slowly, reluctantly, his fingers loosened from Isabella’s arm.
Isabella stepped past him, a venomous smile curving her crimson lips, and placed the document into Antonella’s waiting hands.
“Read page three, Nonna,” Isabella whispered.
“See what your golden grandson thinks you’re worth.”
Antonella unfolded the thick parchment, her reading glasses already perched on the bridge of her nose.
I watched her face as her dark eyes scanned the typed paragraphs.
I had known this woman for seven years.
I had watched her bury two brothers and a husband without shedding a single tear in public.
But as Antonella read those pages, the color drained completely from her cheeks, leaving her skin gray as ash.
Her trembling fingers rustled the stiff paper.
“An assisted living facility,” Antonella whispered, her voice cracking for the first time in my memory.
“The St. Jude Memory Care Pavilion in Oak Brook.”
The entire dining room erupted into shocked gasps and frantic whispers.
Aunt Teresa stood up, crossing herself in horror.
“Gabriel, Madonna mia, tell us this isn't true!” Teresa cried.
Gabriel did not answer his aunt.
He kept his eyes locked on his grandmother, his expression hardening into cold, pragmatic stone.
“You are eighty-four, Nonna,” Gabriel said, trying to regain control of the room.
“You fell twice in the garden last month.”
“You leave the gas burners on after making espresso.”
“I am the head of this family, and it is my responsibility to ensure you are properly cared for.”
“And the house?” Antonella asked, her dark eyes piercing straight through his defense.
“What happens to the house where Vittorio laid you in your crib?”
Isabella stepped forward before Gabriel could spin his lie.
“The house is being deeded to Romano Development, Claire,” Isabella said, looking directly at me with cruel delight.
“Gabriel signed the preliminary intent-to-transfer last Tuesday at the Drake Hotel.”
“In exchange for five million dollars and fifty percent equity in our new south-side casino project.”
My hands began to shake violently in my lap.
I looked at my husband.
The man I had ironed shirts for, cooked meals for, and defended when everyone in this city called him a monster.
He hadn't just taken a mistress.
He was selling his family's sacred ground to her father's syndicate, and he was locking his own grandmother away to do it.
Gabriel turned his gaze toward me, cold and devoid of any remorse.
“It was a business decision, Claire,” he said flatly.
“And you have no say in family business.”
Nonna Antonella slowly lowered the paper to the tablecloth.
She looked at her grandson, then down at the wedding band she had worn for sixty-two years.
“You think you are Vittorio Moretti because you wear his ring and sit in his chair,” Antonella whispered.
She looked up, and the fire in her ancient eyes was terrifying.
“Vittorio would have put a bullet in your head before he let you sell this roof over our heads.”
She pointed a shaking finger toward the front doors.
May you like
“Get out of my dining room, Isabella Romano.”
“Before I have my husband’s men throw you into the lake.”
