Chapter 9 - The Altar of Glass
The great ballroom of the Moretti estate was designed to look like a Venetian palace—mirrored walls, gold moldings, and three crystal chandeliers that hung like frozen waterfalls from forty-foot ceilings.
Now, it was a battleground.
Julian Moretti stood in the center of the parquet floor. He had discarded his camel coat; he wore a black tactical vest over his dress shirt, an automatic rifle hanging from a sling across his chest. Behind him stood six men armed with short-barreled shotguns—contract killers hired out of Detroit, men who didn't care about Chicago traditions or family loyalty.
Beside Julian stood Vanessa.
She had changed out of her red dinner gown into a sharp black suit. Her blonde hair was tied back in a severe, elegant knot. In her right hand, she held a silver Beretta, resting casually against her hip.
"You're late, brother," Julian called out as Luca stepped through the double doors at the far end of the ballroom.
Luca was alone. He carried no rifle, no vest. Only the tailored suit he had put on before dawn, his hands empty at his sides.
I stood behind the heavy mahogany doors in the shadows of the vestibule, Mateo’s backup weapon heavy and cold in my right hand, my bandaged wrist throbbing in time with my frantic pulse.
"You brought mercenaries into our father's house, Julian," Luca said, his voice calm, echoing clearly off the high glass mirrors. "He would have put you in a barrel and dropped you in the river for less."
"Our father was a hypocrite who died an old, weak man!" Julian shouted, his voice cracking with that manic, unstable energy. "He gave you the docks. He gave you the city. He sent me to New York to count freight containers like a clerk!"
"Because you're stupid, Julian," Luca replied smoothly, taking two slow steps down the center aisle of the ballroom. "A boss doesn't let a dog run the house when the dog can't even tell who's holding the leash."
He glanced at Vanessa.
"Did she tell you about the ledger, Julian? Did she tell you what was written in the back?"
Vanessa’s eyes narrowed. "Don't listen to him, Julian. He’s stalling. Mateo is probably in the basement trying to cut the power."
"Mateo is dead," Julian lied, though his eyes darted nervously toward the service doors. "End this, Luca. Sign the transfer papers for the port accounts, and we let you walk out the front door. You can take your little maid and disappear to Florida."
Luca stopped ten paces from his brother.
"The maid isn't a maid, Julian," Luca said softly.
Vanessa’s finger tightened on the trigger of her Beretta. "Shut up, Luca."
"She has our father's eyes, doesn't she?" Luca continued, ignoring her completely. "Look at her records from '97. Look at the trust funds. You aren't taking my empire, Julian. You're trying to rob our sister."
Julian froze. He turned his head toward Vanessa, his jaw dropping. "What is he talking about? What sister?"
"He's lying to save his neck!" Vanessa screamed, raising her gun. "Shoot him, Julian! Now!"
Julian hesitated. Just for half a second.
That half-second was all Luca needed.
Luca dropped low, sweeping his hand beneath his jacket, pulling his custom Kimber .45 from his small-of-back holster.
Gunfire ripped through the ballroom.
The roar of the automatic rifle was deafening, the muzzle flashes strobing against the mirrored walls. Glass shattered from the chandeliers, raining down like diamond hail onto the parquet floor.
Luca fired three shots in rapid succession. The first hit Julian’s rifle, knocking the barrel upward; the second caught the mercenary to Julian’s left in the throat.
I didn't think. The fear that had kept me small and quiet my entire life evaporated in a surge of pure, blinding rage.
I stepped through the double doors, lifted Mateo’s Glock with both hands, ignoring the tearing pain in my sprained wrist, and leveled the sights directly at Vanessa Bellini.
Vanessa turned toward me, her eyes widening in genuine terror as she recognized the maid holding the iron.
"Emma—" she started.
I pulled the trigger.
The recoil bucked against my palms. The bullet struck the marble column an inch from Vanessa’s head, showering her face in stone dust. She screamed, dropping her Beretta onto the glass-strewn floor, scrambling backward on her hands and knees like an animal.
The rest of the fight lasted forty seconds.
Mateo and four loyal Moretti soldiers breached the side doors with suppressed submachine guns, catching the Detroit mercenaries in a crossfire that turned the Venetian ballroom into a slaughterhouse.
When the smoke cleared, Julian was on his knees, clutching a bleeding shoulder, weeping openly among the shards of shattered crystal.
Vanessa was huddled against the base of the grand piano, her expensive suit shredded, her face covered in blood and dust.
Luca stood in the center of the room. His shirt was torn, a streak of crimson running down his left bicep where a stray bullet had grazed him, but his stance was unbroken.
He walked over to where Vanessa was cowering, kicked her silver Beretta across the floor, and looked down at her.
"My father had a rule about family, Vanessa," Luca said, his voice lower than a grave. "You never, ever turn them against each other."
He raised his gun, pointing the barrel between her eyes.
"Luca," I said.
My voice was quiet, but in the ruined, ringing silence of the room, it carried like a bell.
Luca froze. His finger remained on the trigger, but his eyes flicked toward me where I stood with the smoking gun lowered at my side.
"Don't do it," I said, walking slowly across the crunching glass. "Not for her. If you kill her here, the Bellinis go to war. New York intervenes. Everything our father hid... it all burns."
Luca stared at me. The monster that lived behind his slate-gray eyes wrestled with the girl who had carried his soup tray four nights ago.
Slowly, very slowly, he lowered the hammer of his gun.
"Call the police," Luca ordered Mateo without looking away from Vanessa. "Tell them Don Antonio’s daughter broke into my home with an armed crew to steal fifty million dollars in federal bearer bonds."
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He looked at Vanessa with total, merciless contempt.
"Let the state have her," Luca whispered. "A cell in Dwight Correctional is much longer than a bullet."
