Chapter 3 - The Wolf and the Architect
The Maybach crossed the Chicago River, heading south past the abandoned brick warehouses of Pilsen toward the old iron foundries.
The rain had turned to sleet, rattling against the armored windows like birdshot. We turned into a nondescript alley between two soaring industrial walls of blackened brick, passing through three separate steel gates that opened automatically via sensor before sliding shut with heavy, definitive clangs.
The car stopped inside a cavernous, heated garage.
Dante stepped out and opened my door himself. He did not offer his hand to assist me, and for that, I was silently grateful. The last thing I needed was to be treated like an invalid.
“Upstairs,” he said simply.
We took an industrial freight elevator with exposed iron grating up to the fourth floor. When the iron gate pulled back, it revealed a vast, minimalist loft. Concrete floors polished to a mirror finish, floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the rain-drenched skyline of the city, and a roaring fireplace built into an exposed brick wall. There were no gilded mirrors, no crystal chandeliers, no portraits of dead ancestors staring down in judgment. It was clean, functional, and guarded by four men armed with short-barreled submachine guns who nodded respectfully as Dante walked in.
“Sit,” Dante said, pointing toward a low leather armchair near the fire.
He tossed his wet overcoat to one of his guards, walked over to a wet bar constructed of reclaimed timber, and poured two glasses of amber scotch. He walked over, handed me one, and took the seat opposite me.
I held the heavy crystal glass, letting the warmth of the alcohol radiate against my numb palms, but I did not drink.
“You’ve been planning this for a while, Evelyn,” Dante said, studying me over the rim of his glass. “Don’t pretend this was an impulse born out of a broken heart.”
I met his gaze across the flickering firelight.
“My heart was not broken tonight, Dante. It was broken four years ago when Roman Castellano stood beside my father’s open casket and promised me he would find the men who cut the brake lines on the Skyway bridge.”
Dante’s gray eyes narrowed slightly.
“You know about the brake lines?”
“I found the mechanic’s receipt in Roman’s private safe eighteen months ago,” I said coldly. “A cash disbursement from an offshore shell company in the Cayman Islands. Roman didn’t just marry me to consolidate the territory; he murdered Antonio Moretti to force the merger before my father could name you his official successor.”
Dante took a slow sip of his scotch. He did not look surprised. In the underworld, betrayal was as common as winter frost; what surprised men like Dante was not the crime, but the patience of the witness.
“You stayed eighteen months in his house knowing he killed your father?”
“I had no army,” I said, leaning forward, the velvet of my dress rustling against the leather. “I had no access to the banks. I had no weapons, no capos, and no family left. If I had confronted him, he would have slipped a lethal dose of digitalis into my bedtime tea and called it suicide brought on by grief. I had to wait until he was arrogant enough to humiliate me in public.”
“Why public?”
“Because the Moretti charter of 1982,” I said, quoting the exact legal language my father had made me memorize as a child, “explicitly states that the matriarchal proxy cannot be stripped by force or private coercion. It must be surrendered openly, before the witnesses of the Five Families, without duress. When Roman brought Vanessa into that ballroom, he gave me the stage. By publicly handing her the ring, I didn't lose my inheritance, Dante. I triggered the breach-of-trust clause.”
Dante set his glass down on the small table between us with a soft click.
A slow, wolfish smile spread across his face—the first genuine emotion I had seen from him all night.
“Antonio always said you had his mind,” Dante murmured. “He told me once that if you had been born a boy, he would have retired at fifty and let you run Chicago with an iron fist.”
“I don’t need to be a boy to run Chicago,” I retorted. “I need the docks, the accounts, and the man who knows how to use them.”
Dante leaned back, crossing his long legs.
“The Swiss accounts cleared twenty minutes ago. Fifty million in liquid assets are now sitting in my escrow. The Calumet docks are locked down by federal marshals because the title is contested. Roman’s supply lines are cut off at the knees. By sunrise, his cocaine shipments sitting on the cargo ships outside the harbor will be rotting in the cold, and the Colombians will be demanding their money.”
“And Vanessa?” I asked, a faint chill touching my spine.
Dante’s smile hardened into something merciless.
“The ring did its job. The old man’s lock mechanism engaged. Roman is currently realizing that the only way to get that sapphire off her finger is with a bone saw. And if he cuts her hand, the High Commission will execute him for mutilating an unanointed civilian on neutral territory.”
I closed my eyes for a brief second. Vanessa had been foolish, vain, and greedy. She had wanted my life, my husband, and my crown. But a small, dark part of me felt the horrific gravity of what I had set in motion. The mafia did not forgive mistakes, and Roman Castellano was now a wounded beast backed into a corner.
“He will come for me,” I whispered, opening my eyes. “He knows this wasn’t just an exit. He knows it’s an execution.”
“Let him come,” Dante said, his voice dropping into a register that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. He reached down beside his chair, picked up a sleek, black polymer automatic pistol, and laid it gently in my lap.
The cold steel rested against the green velvet of my dress.
May you like
“Your father gave you a mind, Evelyn,” Dante said quietly, his eyes holding mine with an intensity that made the room feel suddenly smaller. “Now let me give you your teeth.”
***
