Chapter 10 - A Plot in the Shadows
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While peace bloomed inside the walls of the Moretti estate, a venomous conspiracy was taking shape in the private dining room of an upscale downtown steakhouse.
Camilla Vance sat across from Don Corrado, the aging, ruthless boss of Chicago's southern docks and Alessandro’s bitterest business rival.
Beside them sat Beatrice, the disgraced former head housekeeper, her face pinched with bitter hatred, clutching a counterfeit master keycard.
The three of them were united by a single, burning desire: to destroy Alessandro Moretti’s reign and humiliate the woman who had replaced them.
“Alessandro has lost his mind over that fat little peasant girl,” Camilla hissed, taking a sharp sip of her dry martini.
“He publicly threatened me in his conservatory, broke off our family alliance, and threw Beatrice onto the sidewalk without a severance check!”
Don Corrado cut into his rare steak with a heavy silver knife, a sinister, calculating grin spreading across his scarred face.
“Alessandro has always been arrogant, but he was always disciplined,” Corrado murmured in his raspy, smoker’s voice.
“If he is letting his emotions be guided by a maid and an old man with one foot in the grave, he has become weak.”
He turned his cold, predatory eyes toward Beatrice, who leaned forward over the table with desperate eagerness.
“Tell me about the estate layout, Beatrice,” Corrado demanded.
“The security grid has a sixty-second blind spot during the shift rotation at midnight,” Beatrice revealed, sliding the stolen keycard across the white linen tablecloth.
“This card still opens the service gate behind the old carriage house where the backup generators are housed.”
“If you cut the main power lines there, the electronic locks on the master suite and the library safe will default to manual release for three minutes.”
Camilla smiled, a cruel, triumphant spark illuminating her blue eyes.
“The annual Winter Solstice Charity Gala is this Saturday night at the estate,” Camilla said, leaning in.
“Three hundred of the city’s most prominent figures will be in the grand ballroom.”
“Alessandro will be occupied playing host to the governor and the mayor.”
“That is when your men strike, Corrado,” she urged.
“You break into the study, seize the offshore shipping manifests that prove his syndicate operations, and abduct that pathetic maid.”
“Once Alessandro realizes his precious girl is in your hands, he will surrender the southern container terminals without firing a single shot.”
Corrado let out a low, gravelly laugh that sounded like stones grinding inside an iron drum.
“A brilliant strategy, Miss Vance,” Corrado said, picking up the keycard and slipping it into his tailored suit pocket.
“Your father gets to keep his judicial seat clean, Beatrice gets five hundred thousand dollars in cash, and I take the entire Midwest trade route.”
“And what do you want from this, Camilla?”
Camilla’s expression turned into a mask of pure, unadulterated venom.
“I want to see that oversized peasant crawl on her knees in front of the entire high-society register,” Camilla spat.
“I want her stripped of that designer coat and thrown back into the gutter where she belongs.”
Corrado raised his wine glass in a dark, conspiratorial toast.
“To Saturday night,” the old gangster said with a sinister grin.
May you like
“To the fall of House Moretti.”
Across the table, Beatrice smiled with malicious anticipation, unaware that the walls of the Moretti kingdom were far thicker than any keycard could pierce.
