Chương 5 - Whispers in the Bloodline
The peace of the orchard did not last through the weekend.
On Sunday afternoon, three black Lincoln Continentals rolled through the estate’s iron gates without the usual ten-minute courtesy notification from the gatehouse guards.
I was in the small conservatory off the library, helping Leo organize his collection of pressed leaves, when Henderson appeared in the archway. The majordomo’s usually unflappable face was gray, his thin lips pressed into a bloodless line.
"Isabella," he said, keeping his voice so low that the boy wouldn't hear. "Take the children to the nursery suite immediately. Lock the outer door. Do not open it for anyone other than myself or Mr. Moretti."
Leo’s head snapped up. The child knew the protocol. He didn't ask questions; he immediately slid his leaves into the manila folder and took Lily’s hand, his small face hardening into the wooden mask he wore whenever the outside world intruded.
"Who is it, Mr. Henderson?" I asked, gathering Lily into my arms.
"Don Valenti," Henderson replied, his eyes darting toward the front entryway where heavy footsteps were already echoing across the marble. "And his nephew. Move quickly, girl."
Don Silvio Valenti was the head of the South Boston syndicate—an older, vulturous man who had fought Dominic’s father for control of the Charlestown docks in the eighties. The peace between them was negotiated in blood, written on paper that had to be renewed every three years with tributes and territory concessions.
I carried Lily up the service stairs, Leo jogging at my heels, his hand gripping the hem of my apron with white-knuckled desperation.
We reached the second-floor landing just as the voices from the grand foyer exploded into clarity.
"Dominic! Look at this place! Clean enough to eat off the tiles, as always!"
The voice was boisterous, theatrical, dripping with the false affection that mobsters used right before they slid a wire around a man’s throat.
I stopped at the balustrade, concealed behind the heavy crimson velvet drapes that framed the gallery overlooking the foyer. I knew I should have kept running to the nursery. I knew it was suicide to linger.
But I couldn't pull myself away.
Dominic stood at the base of the twin marble staircases. He was flanked by only two men—his underboss, Marco, and a mountain of a man named Frank who handled his personal security. Dominic hadn't put on his suit jacket; he stood in his white shirt and black trousers, his posture relaxed, his hands resting lightly in his pockets.
Opposite him stood Silvio Valenti—a man in his late sixties with slicked-back silver hair, wearing an expensive camel-hair coat with a fur collar. Behind him stood six men, all of them young, thick-necked, their hands tucked inside their leather jackets.
Among them was Luca Moretti.
Dominic’s cousin. A man with rat-like eyes and a thin, cruel mouth who managed the family’s gambling interests in Revere. He was standing too close to Valenti—not behind his own boss, but shoulder-to-shoulder with the rival Don.
A betrayal in plain sight.
"Silvio," Dominic said, his voice flat, completely devoid of welcome. "You didn't call ahead. My kitchen staff hasn't prepared a table."
"Between family, what is a telephone call?" Valenti laughed, though his dark, watery eyes never left Dominic’s throat. "I was in the neighborhood. Inspecting the new shipping containers in Eastie. I heard an interesting rumor, Dominic. Very interesting."
"Rumors are cheap in this town, Silvio. Usually spread by men who have nothing of their own to protect." Dominic’s gaze shifted, lazily, toward his cousin Luca.
Luca shifted his weight, his eyes darting toward the floor before snapping back with a smirk. "Just business, Dom. Silvio was curious about the operation."
"What rumor?" Dominic asked, ignoring his cousin entirely.
Valenti took two steps forward, his leather shoes clicking loudly on the marble. "They tell me the Iron Don is getting soft. They tell me the widower has found himself a new hobby. Trips to the country. Apple picking. Firing governesses because they are too mean to the boy."
My heart stopped.
The orchard. Someone had seen us. Someone had reported the blue Volvo.
Dominic didn't blink. Not a single muscle in his face moved. "My household is my concern, Silvio. The docks are running at full capacity. The Teamsters are paid. The kickbacks to your precinct captain cleared on Friday. What happens inside these walls does not belong on your ledger."
"Ah, but it does, Dominic," Valenti purred, his voice dropping into a sinister, greasy register. "A man who goes soft in his home becomes soft in his negotiations. A man with a woman and a couple of brats is a man with handles. You can grab him. You can steer him."
The air in the foyer turned to liquid nitrogen.
Marco, Dominic’s underboss, shifted his right foot back two inches, clearing the line of fire for the weapon beneath his arm. Frank didn't move at all; he simply looked at the man closest to Valenti with the dead, blank eyes of a slaughterhouse worker.
Dominic took his hands out of his pockets.
The movement was slow, casual, terrifying. He walked toward Valenti until there were barely three feet separating them. Dominic was half a foot taller, broader across the shoulders, an apex predator standing before an old scavenger.
"Handles, Silvio?" Dominic asked, his voice so quiet, so gentle, that it sent a bolt of pure, primal dread through my marrow.
"Just an observation, nephew—"
Dominic’s left hand shot out like an iron piston.
He didn't draw a gun. He grabbed Valenti by the fur collar of his expensive camel-hair coat, twisting the thick wool into his fist, and slammed the older man backward against the heavy oak table in the center of the foyer.
Crystal vases shattered. Silver trays clattered to the floor.
Before Valenti’s six bodyguards could clear leather, Marco and Frank had their weapons drawn—two black semi-automatics leveled with machine-like precision at the heads of the front two men.
"Draw it," Frank whispered, his thumb clicking the hammer back. "Please."
Valenti was choking, his hands clawing at Dominic’s iron grip. His silver hair had fallen out of place; his face was turning a mottled, furious purple.
"Listen to me, you old vulture," Dominic whispered, leaning down until his nose was an inch from Valenti’s ear. "You breathe one word about what happens inside this house again, and I will not kill you. I will dismantle you. I will take your sons, I will take your docks, and I will burn your warehouse in Southie with you inside it."
Dominic’s eyes flicked to his cousin Luca, who stood frozen, his hand halfway inside his jacket, his face pale as lard.
"And you, Luca," Dominic said, not raising his voice an octave. "You have twenty-four hours to turn over the books for the Revere slots to Marco. If there is a single dollar missing, do not bother running to Montreal. I will find you in the snow."
Dominic shoved Valenti backward. The old Don stumbled, crashing into two of his men who scrambled to keep him upright.
"Get out of my house," Dominic said, turning his back on them—an act of supreme, lethal disrespect. "Now."
Valenti adjusted his coat with trembling, furious hands. His face was twisted with hatred, the mask of joviality entirely gone. "You're making a mistake, Moretti," he wheezed, his voice choked with phlegm and rage. "A very big mistake. A castle with rotten wood falls from the inside."
He spat on the marble floor—two inches from Dominic’s shoe—turned, and marched toward the heavy oak doors, his entourage trailing behind him like whipped dogs.
The front doors slammed shut. The deadbolts engaged with the heavy, hydraulic hum of automated security.
The foyer was dead silent, save for the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner and the heavy, ragged breathing of Don Dominic Moretti.
He stood in the center of the ruined entryway, surrounded by shattered crystal and spilled water, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.
Up on the gallery, Leo was shaking so hard his teeth were clicking. Lily was burying her face in the crook of my neck, sensing the violence even if she couldn't understand its origin.
"Come," I whispered to Leo, pulling him toward the nursery corridor. "Quickly."
We slipped into the shadows of the upper hall, but as I pulled the door shut behind us, I caught one last glimpse of Dominic through the balustrade.
He had turned around.
He was looking up at the crimson velvet drapes where we had been hiding.
May you like
He knew we had seen it. He knew the beast had slipped its leash, right in front of the woman and the boy he had tried, for forty-eight hours, to pretend were safe.
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