Chapter 5 - THE VELVET COAT
Alexei stepped into the study, pulling the heavy wooden doors shut behind him. He moved with the quiet grace of a predator who had already won.
“How did you get in here?” I breathed, backing up against the desk.
“The Moretti walls are high, but loyalty is easily bought if you know which pressure point to press,” Alexei smiled thinly. “A grandmother’s love, for instance. Or her fear.”
My stomach dropped. Lucia. The housekeeper. She had a teenage grandson in the city who kept getting into trouble. Alexei hadn't bought her with money; he had bought her with a threat.
“Where is Dante?” I asked, my hands gripping the edge of the mahogany desk to keep from shaking.
“Lured away to the shipping yards twenty minutes ago. An urgent fire that required his personal attention.” Alexei gestured with the gun. “Put your coat on, Mara. It’s freezing outside, and we have a long drive ahead of us.”
I glanced at the heavy velvet coat draped over the armchair. I didn't move. “You poisoned my father.”
Alexei didn't deny it. “Your father was a nuisance. He found our shipping routes. I offered him a train ticket to disappear, but he was too stubborn. So, we gave him a sickness that looked entirely natural. Just business.”
“He was a good man!”
“Good men die poor,” Alexei countered coldly. “Now, put the coat on. Isabella wants to see the look on Dante’s face when he realizes I’ve taken his precious fiancée out from under his roof.”
I slowly reached for the velvet coat. As I slipped my arms into the sleeves, a sudden, piercing clarity washed over me. Alexei expected a victim. He expected a terrified girl who would walk quietly to her execution.
But I was my father’s daughter. And I was wearing Dante Moretti’s ring.
As I pulled the heavy velvet lapels together, I slid my hand into the deep pocket. My fingers brushed against a heavy brass lighter Dante had left there earlier.
“Walk,” Alexei commanded, stepping aside to let me pass.
I moved toward the door. Alexei followed close behind, the muzzle of his gun pressed firmly against my spine through the velvet coat. We stepped into the dark hallway. The security cameras above us had a red light—disabled by Lucia.
As we passed the grand foyer, we walked near a massive, antique glass vase sitting on a marble pedestal.
“If you kill me, Dante will burn your empire to the ground,” I whispered.
“Dante is weak,” Alexei scoffed. “He let a girl make him soft.”
“You’re wrong,” I said.
I didn't hesitate. I threw all my weight sideways, deliberately hooking my heavy velvet coat and the thick emerald ring against the edge of the glass vase.
The vase tipped and crashed to the marble floor with the sound of a bomb detonating.
The silence of the house shattered. Guards shouted from the upper levels. Boots pounded against the hardwood floors.
Alexei cursed in Russian. He aimed his gun to shoot me, but I had already dropped to the floor, rolling away. He fired once. The bullet tore through the shoulder of my velvet coat, slicing into my skin like a hot wire. I screamed, clutching my arm.
Before Alexei could fire a second shot, Marco burst from the side corridor, an assault rifle raised. Alexei fired blindly in Marco’s direction and sprinted toward the kitchen exit, disappearing into the dark.
I lay on the marble floor, blood soaking into the velvet.
The front doors blew open. Dante sprinted into the foyer, his suit jacket gone, his eyes wild with a panic I had never seen in him. When he saw me on the floor, bleeding, the ruthless mafia king vanished.
He dropped to his knees, sliding across the marble, and pulled me into his arms.
“Mara! Stay with me, look at me!” Dante’s hands were stained with my blood as he pressed against my shoulder. “Marco! Get the doctor! Now!”
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I looked up at his terrified face. He hadn't betrayed me. He had been trying to carry the weight of both our families’ sins.
“He was here,” I gasped, clutching Dante’s shirt. “Alexei was here.”
