Chapter 2 - The Iron Gate Swings Shut
The click of the electronic deadbolts resounded through the cavernous upstairs corridor like the hammer of a revolver pulling back. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the high, wrought-iron security gates of the North Shore estate slid closed with a dull, hydraulic shudder that seemed to shake the very foundations of the limestone mansion.
Patricia took another frantic step backward toward the threshold, her hands fluttering at her starched collar. Her face, which had been pinched with petty authority only ten minutes ago, was now the sickly shade of curdled cream.
"Mr. Moretti, please," she stammered, her voice thin and shrill. "This is absurd. You know how Eleanor's mind wanders since the stroke. The doctors warned us she would suffer from paranoid delusions! She’s imagining things—she’s inventing grudges out of thin air!"
Eleanor’s hand clamped around my wrist with astonishing strength for a woman so frail. Her fingernails dug into my skin, anchoring herself to the only person in the room who spoke her language. Her eyes were wide, liquid with ancient terror, but behind that fear was a brilliant, burning clarity. She wasn't senile. She was cornered.
Don’t let them take it, Eleanor signed rapidly with her free left hand, her fingers trembling against my forearm. Don’t let her touch the papers.
Luca didn't look at Patricia. He didn't even blink. He stood six feet two inches of tailored black wool and dark Sicilian heritage, towering over the room. His focus remained entirely pinned to the slip of paper he had taken from my hands.
His jaw worked once, twice, the muscle jumping beneath olive skin that had gone tight and pale.
"The last name on this paper," Luca murmured. His voice wasn't loud; it was terrifyingly level, possessing the low, vibrating hum of a high-voltage transformer. "Why is Marcus Vance on this list?"
A cold sweat broke out along Patricia’s hairline. "I... I don't know! I have no idea who that is, Mr. Moretti! She must have heard it on the television—"
Lie, Eleanor signed furiously, leaning forward so far in her wheelchair that her frail chest pressed against my knee. Lying snake. Marcus brings the needles. Every Tuesday night. When my boy is in New York.
I translated aloud, my voice steady despite the hammer of my pulse against my ribs. "She says Patricia is lying. She says Marcus Vance comes every Tuesday night while you’re out of the city. She says he brings needles."
At the word needles, something monstrous and ancient broke behind Luca Moretti's slate-gray eyes. In Chicago, men who ran multi-million-dollar maritime logistics conglomerates didn't flinch at rumors; they acted on blood. Marcus Vance wasn't a family acquaintance. Marcus Vance was the underboss of the South Side docks—a man who had supposedly sworn fealty to the Moretti family twelve years ago.
"Marco," Luca said quietly into the empty doorway.
A mountain of a man in a dark charcoal suit materialized from the shadow of the gallery. He didn't ask questions. He simply stepped inside, his hands clasped over his waist.
"Sir?"
"Take Patricia to the lower wine cellar," Luca said, his voice as smooth and lethal as polished ice. "Take her personal phone, her smart watch, and every set of keys on her belt. Strip the other two girls who were standing in the hall and put them in the pantry. If any of them makes a sound, gag them."
"Mr. Moretti, no! You can't do this! I have rights! I’ll call the police!" Patricia screamed, lunging toward the door.
Marco caught her by the scruff of her immaculate uniform with one hand, lifting her off her patent-leather shoes with casual brutality. He dragged her backward down the carpeted hallway, her frantic shrieks dying out the moment the heavy oak fire door swung shut at the end of the wing.
Silence descended upon the room like falling snow.
Eleanor let out a long, ragged exhale, collapsing back against her cushions. Her face was drenched in perspiration, her breathing shallow and wheezing.
Luca took a slow step forward. For all his imposing size and the lethal authority that radiated from his shoulders, he approached the wheelchair as if he were treading on fragile glass.
He knelt on the parquet floor beside me. His expensive trousers hit the dust where the white roses lay scattered.
"Mom?" he whispered, his deep voice cracking slightly around the syllable.
Eleanor turned her head away from him.
The rejection was so raw, so physical, that Luca flinched as though he had taken a round to the chest. He reached out to touch her hand, but she recoiled, pulling her fingers against her chest and curling into a protective ball.
Tell him, her hands signed with spastic, jerky motions, aimed directly at me. Ask him why he signed it. Ask him why he gave Marcus the guardianship.
I swallowed hard, looking from the weeping mother to the dangerous man kneeling on the floor.
"Mr. Moretti," I said softly, my voice barely more than a whisper. "She wants to know why you signed her over. She thinks you gave legal guardianship of her care and her estate to Marcus Vance."
Luca stared at me, his eyes widening in complete incomprehension. "I never signed anything. The estate remains in a private family trust. My mother has never been declared incompetent."
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Eleanor’s head snapped back around. Her rheumy brown eyes bore into his, filled with a mixture of desperate hope and profound agony.
The blue binder, she signed quickly, pointing a gnarled, arthritic finger toward the antique mahogany secretary desk across the room. Behind the false backing. Bottom left drawer. The papers they made me press my thumb to.
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