Chapter 2 - THE CLAIM
The silence inside the dining room did not just fall; it calcified.
Across the long expanse of polished mahogany, four of the most ruthless men in the Tri-State area froze with their forks halfway to their mouths. Marco, posted like a stone sentinel near the arched entryway, shifted his weight by a single fraction of an inch—his hand drifting instinctively beneath the lapel of his charcoal suit jacket. The crystal chandelier overhead hummed faintly against the absolute stillness of the room.
I stood frozen against the wall, a silver decanter of vintage Barolo heavy in my right hand. My breath caught in my throat, hot and dry.
She’s mine.
The words hung in the air like fresh blood on clean snow. They weren't delivered with the roaring bravado of an insecure brute or the theatrical flair of an arrogant prince. Nicholas had spoken with the terrifying, flat certainty of a man reading off a death certificate. Low. Guttural. Final.
Roberto Ferraro’s smirk did not vanish immediately; instead, it curdled into something ugly and intensely calculating. He held his crystal glass by the stem, swirling amber scotch against the light. His dark eyes darted from Nicholas to me, peeling back every layer of my modest uniform, dissecting the raw tension suddenly vibrating between us.
“Yours?” Roberto purred, switching effortlessly back to English so that every ear at the table caught the sharp edge of his disrespect. “Since when does Nicholas DeLuca keep company with the hired help? I thought you preferred your women pedigree-certified and bought out of Upper East Side charity galas.”
Nicholas didn't blink. He didn't rush to correct himself, nor did he offer the slightest hint of regret for letting his mask slip. Slowly, deliberately, he placed his sterling silver knife and fork parallel across his black china plate. The faint clink of metal on ceramic sounded like a gunshot in the tomb-quiet room.
“My private affairs are not an agenda item on tonight’s table, Roberto,” Nicholas said, his voice dropping into a smooth, velvet register that made the hair on the back of my arms stand up. “You came here to negotiate the Brooklyn shipping docks. Let us keep our focus on what you can afford, rather than what you cannot touch.”
A collective exhalation rippled through the other four capos at the table. Old Man Bellandi cleared his throat loudly, nervously cutting into his braised short rib. “The boy speaks sense, Roberto. We are here for business. Leave the girl be.”
Roberto didn’t look away from Nicholas. The smile on his lips was razor-thin. “Of course. Business first. But an exquisite centerpiece always deserves admiration, Nicholas. It would be a tragedy if someone simply took what you left unguarded.”
Nicholas’s dark eyes narrowed, a lethal darkness settling into his irises. “Nothing I own is unguarded.”
My heart hammered so violently against my ribs I was terrified the men could hear it. I am not a centerpiece. I am not property. But survival in this world meant keeping your head down while monsters measured each other's claws.
“Miss Hart,” Nicholas said calmly, not turning his head toward me. “Clear the table.”
“Yes, Mr. DeLuca,” I murmured. My voice sounded remarkably steady, a miracle born of pure adrenaline.
I moved forward, my flat-soled shoes making no sound against the Persian rug. As I leaned over Roberto’s left shoulder to lift his empty plate, the scent of his cologne—spicy, suffocating sandalwood—invaded my lungs.
Before I could pull away, Roberto’s knee shifted under the table, deliberately grazing my thigh through the fabric of my skirt.
I didn't flinch. I kept my balance, removed the plate, and stepped back smoothly. But as I turned toward the swinging kitchen doors, I caught Nicholas’s reflection in the floor-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking Manhattan.
He was watching Roberto’s every microscopic movement. His jaw was clenched so hard the muscles jumped beneath his golden skin, and his right hand was curled into a white-knuckled fist against the linen napkin.
The moment the double doors swung shut behind me, the cool air of the industrial kitchen hit my face like a slap. I set the porcelain down on the stainless-steel counter with trembling hands and braced my palms against the edge of the sink.
Breathe, Gabriella. Just breathe.
For six months, I had been a ghost. I cleaned his Italian marble, washed his Egyptian cotton sheets, wiped his blood-splattered cuff links when he came home at three in the morning without ever asking where the stain had come from. He had barely looked at me. To him, I was supposed to be a fixture, like the central air conditioning or the biometric locks on the doors.
Why had he said it? Why paint a target directly on my back in front of a predator like Roberto Ferraro?
The kitchen door clicked open.
Marco stepped inside, his broad frame filling the space. He didn't look angry; he looked grim.
“Pack your things from the break room, Miss Hart,” Marco said quietly.
Panic spiked in my chest. “Am I being fired? Marco, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t look at him, I didn't—”
“You aren't fired,” Marco interrupted gently, crossing his arms. “You’re being moved.”
“Moved where?”
“Upstairs. To the master suite quarters.” Marco rubbed his jaw, sighing heavily. “Roberto Ferraro doesn't let things go. He tests boundaries until someone bleeds. The boss made a claim in front of five witnesses. If Roberto thinks you’re vulnerable, he’ll take you off the street tomorrow just to see if Nicholas will start a war over you.”
I stared at him, my mouth slightly open. “This is insane. I have an apartment in Queens. I have a cat. I have a normal life—”
“You had a normal life until ten minutes ago,” Marco said, his voice entirely devoid of cruelty, only offering cold, pragmatic reality. “Now, you’re Nicholas DeLuca’s woman in the eyes of the Five Families. And out there, Miss Hart, that makes you the most dangerous piece on the board.”
Before I could answer, the door swung open again.
The dining room had emptied; the guests were being escorted out by armed guards down the private elevator. Nicholas DeLuca walked into the kitchen. He had loosened his silk tie, the top two buttons of his crisp white dress shirt undone, revealing the hollow of his throat and the faint edge of a dark tattoo sweeping across his collarbone.
Marco gave a curt nod and vanished through the secondary corridor, leaving us in heavy, suffocating isolation.
Nicholas stopped three feet from me. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and radiated an oppressive, magnetic heat that seemed to swallow all the oxygen in the room.
“You understand Italian,” Nicholas stated. It wasn't a question.
I swallowed hard, refusing to look down. “A little.”
“Enough to know what he called you. Enough to know what I said.”
“Yes.”
His gaze bored into mine, searching for weakness, for fear, for deceit. “Roberto is an animal. He uses women to humiliate his rivals. When he spoke about you like that, I had two choices: let him think you were disposable, or make you untouchable.”
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“You didn’t make me untouchable, Mr. DeLuca,” I said, my voice rising with a sudden burst of defiance I couldn’t swallow down. “You made me a target.”
A shadow of a dark, dangerous smile touched the corners of his lips. “Only if he can get past me, Miss Hart. And no one gets past me.”
