Chapter 4 - The Board of Wolves
By two o'clock in the morning, the penthouse library smelled of stale cigar smoke, expensive bourbon, and barely suppressed violence.
Vittorio Moretti slammed his palm onto the antique mahogany desk, rattling the crystal decanters. "You let a civilian woman castrate this family in one night! Are you out of your mind, Adrian?"
Adrian stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring out into the rain that continued to hammer Manhattan. His tie was undone, the top buttons of his shirt open. The five-carat diamond ring sat on the desk behind him, catching the harsh desk lamp’s glow.
"She isn't a civilian, Vittorio," Adrian said, his voice dangerously low. "She’s the smartest financial architect on the East Coast. And you treated her like an unwanted dinner guest."
"She was your woman!" Vittorio roared, stepping closer to his nephew. "Her job was to smile, give you heirs, and stay out of the way when the grown men carved up the city! You gave her too much access. I told you three years ago—never let someone who doesn't carry our blood touch the master ledgers!"
"If she hadn't touched the ledgers," Adrian countered, turning around with eyes like flints, "the FBI would have seized our shipping terminals eighteen months ago. You’d be serving thirty years in a federal penitentiary right now, Uncle. Elena laundered sixty million dollars through legitimate European infrastructure without leaving a single fingerprint. Neither you nor Carlo Russo have the brains to understand how she did it."
The double doors of the library swung open, and Carlo Russo walked in unannounced, flanked by Bianca.
Bianca had changed out of her evening gown into a sharp white pantsuit, her dark hair pulled back into an immaculate ponytail. But her smug expression from the banquet had vanished, replaced by a sharp, predatory anxiety.
"My ships are idling off the coast of Montauk, Adrian," Carlo said without greeting them. The older boss looked furious. "The coast guard is circling. My logistics team says the clearance manifests have been flagged as counterfeit. If those containers get searched, I lose forty million dollars in unregistered freight."
"The system experienced an administrative error," Adrian said coldly. "We’re resolving it."
"Administrative error?" Bianca scoffed, stepping into the room and crossing her arms. "Let’s call it what it is. Your little pet threw a tantrum because I sat next to you at dinner. She’s holding our families hostage over female jealousy."
Adrian’s gaze snapped to Bianca.
The temperature in the room plummeted.
"Watch your mouth, Bianca," Adrian said softly.
Bianca stepped back slightly, unnerved by the look in his eyes, but she held her chin high. "Am I wrong? She’s an employee who overstepped. Find her, Adrian. Put a gun to her head and make her unlock the servers. That’s how we handle insubordination."
Adrian let out a cold, humorless laugh.
He walked slowly toward Bianca until he was towering over her. Bianca tried not to flinch, but the pure, unadulterated menace radiating from him forced her eyes downward.
"Put a gun to her head?" Adrian murmured. "You clearly don't know Elena Vale. If you put a gun to her head, she’ll look you in the eyes and press the delete key just to watch you burn with her. She doesn't fold under threats, Bianca. She isn't like you. She doesn't derive her courage from her daddy’s name."
Carlo Russo took an aggressive step forward. "You speak to my daughter with respect, Moretti."
"Your daughter sat in my fiancée's chair tonight and cost us forty million dollars in less than three hours," Adrian spat, turning on Carlo with an intensity that made the older man halt. "You wanted this alliance? You wanted to push Elena out so you could put Bianca in her place and sink your claws into my empire? Congratulations. You pushed out the only person capable of keeping your shipments from rotting in federal impound."
Vittorio stepped between them, raising both hands. "Enough! Infighting solves nothing. Adrian, where did she go? You have the city wired. You have every precinct captain, every port authority guard on payroll. Where is she hiding?"
Marco stepped into the room from the hallway, holding a file. "Boss."
Adrian turned instantly. "Did you locate her?"
Marco hesitated, glancing at the Russos before addressing Adrian directly. "Her primary accounts are closed. Her cell phone was dumped in a trash bin outside the Belladonna Hotel. She didn't use an Uber, she didn't use a cab company affiliated with our dispatchers. But ten minutes ago, we got a ping from an external security server."
"Where?"
"She accessed a terminal in Brooklyn. But she didn't access it alone."
Adrian’s jaw tightened. "What do you mean?"
"The network connection was routed through a private server belonging to the Bellandi Group."
Silence descended on the library like a suffocating blanket.
Vittorio’s eyes widened. "Julian Bellandi? The Bellandi family is our direct competitor in the northern ports!"
Adrian felt an icy rage surge through his veins, hotter and more terrifying than anything he had felt all night.
Julian Bellandi.
He was young, lethal, immensely wealthy, and utterly ruthless. For two years, Bellandi had tried to recruit Elena to run his own corporate financial division, sending her blank checks and private invitations that Elena had always brought to Adrian, laughing as she tossed them into the fireplace.
*“I don't work for snakes, Adrian,”* she had told him once, kissing his jaw. *“I work for you.”*
And Adrian had taken that loyalty for granted. He had believed she would endure any insult, any slight, any humiliation, because she loved him.
"She went to Bellandi?" Bianca asked, a malicious smile returning to her lips. "You see? A traitor from the start. She probably planned this with him weeks ago."
"Shut up," Adrian snarled.
He didn't believe it. Elena wasn't a traitor. She was proud, brilliant, and deeply wounded. If she was using Bellandi’s servers, it wasn't because she was working for him—it was because she knew Bellandi was the only man in New York with the resources to shield her from the Moretti hunting dogs.
Adrian grabbed his overcoat from the chair.
"Where are you going?" Vittorio shouted after him. "The Russo shipment—"
"I don't give a damn about the shipment," Adrian said, checking the slide of the customized Sig Sauer inside his jacket. "I’m getting my wife back."
"She’s not your wife!" Bianca screamed after him, her voice cracking with fury. "She returned your ring!"
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Adrian didn't even slow down. "She’s the only wife I will ever have. And heaven help anyone who stands between me and that door."
***
