Chapter 10 - The Desperate Plea
-10-
Ten minutes later, the heavy glass doors of the conservatory slid open.
Bianca Romano stumbled inside like a ghost, shivering violently in her soaked designer coat. Her boots left muddy puddles across the pristine marble floor, and her breath came in ragged, panicked gasps. She looked around the opulent room—once the crown jewel of the Moretti empire—as if she had walked into a tomb.
I sat quietly at the glass table, sipping my tea. Elena stood three paces behind me, her hand resting near the panic button linked to our private security team.
Bianca stopped five feet from my chair, her knees trembling so badly she nearly collapsed onto the marble.
“Serena,” she whispered, her voice cracking into a ragged, pathetic wheeze. “Please... you have to help me.”
I didn't offer her a seat. I didn't offer her a towel. I simply looked up at her with cold, clinical indifference.
“You’re trespassing on private property, Bianca,” I said calmly. “And given that your father’s syndicate accounts were seized by federal marshals twelve hours ago, you’re also technically a fugitive of interest.”
Bianca fell to her knees.
The woman who had mocked me from a white villa in Sicily, the woman who had believed she was going to become the queen of Manhattan, was now kneeling in a puddle of muddy water on my floor, sobbing uncontrollably.
“They’re going to kill me,” Bianca sobbed, clutching the hem of her ruined coat. “My father’s own enforcers... when the federal indictments dropped, Dante took the remaining cash and flew to Zurich without me. Mateo and the Moretti loyalists stripped the Boston accounts and vanished. The FBI raided our estate in Boston at dawn. I have no money, no passport, no protection, and every hitman in the underworld is looking for a scapegoat!”
“And you thought you would come to me?” I tilted my head, looking down at her with a thin, mocking smile. “You came to the wife whose husband you stole, whose labor you mocked, and whose family you tried to destroy?”
“You’re the only one smart enough to fix this!” Bianca cried out, pressing her forehead against the cold marble floor. “You control the municipal trust! You have the federal connections! If you give me a passport, a burner identity, and twenty thousand dollars, I swear on my life I will disappear to South America and never set foot in North America again!”
I set my teacup down. The porcelain clinked softly against the glass table.
“Bianca,” I said softly, standing up from my chair and walking slowly around the table until I stopped inches from her kneeling figure. “When Lucian was in Sicily with you while I was contracting in room 412, did you think about what consequences looked like?”
Bianca looked up, her face streaked with tears and rain, her eyes wide with terror.
“When you sent those photographs to my phone, hoping I would break, did you think about how cold the world is when the men holding the guns decide you’re no longer useful?” I continued, my voice dropping into a quiet, freezing register.
“I was stupid,” Bianca sobbed, clawing at the hem of my trousers. “I thought Lucian was invincible! I thought the syndicate would protect us forever!”
“The syndicate is a house of cards built on sand, Bianca,” I said, looking down at her as though she were an insect beneath my shoe. “And I didn't blow the house down. I just pulled out the cornerstone and let gravity do the rest.”
I turned my back on her and walked back to the bassinet, gently stroking Nico’s cheek to ensure he hadn't been disturbed by the commotion.
“Elena,” I commanded without looking back.
“Yes, Serena?”
“Call the federal marshal assigned to our protective detail,” I instructed calmly. “Tell him that Ms. Romano has kindly walked herself onto our property, and that we are holding a fugitive for immediate surrender to federal custody.”
Bianca let out a piercing, blood-curdling scream of absolute horror.
“No! No, Serena, please! Not federal prison! They’ll put me away for life! Kill me! Please, just kill me!” she shrieked, lunging forward as if to grab my ankle.
Before she could touch me, the conservatory doors burst open. Two heavy-set federal marshals—disguised as our private security guards—rushed into the room, hauled Bianca roughly to her feet, and slapped heavy steel handcuffs around her wrists.
“Ms. Romano, you have the right to remain silent,” the lead marshal recited coldly as they dragged her kicking and screaming toward the exit.
The heavy glass doors slid shut, cutting off her pathetic wails as the guards escorted her out into the pouring rain.
Elena let out a long, slow breath, running a hand through her hair. “Well. That’s one more rat off the sinking ship.”
“There’s still one rat left,” I said quietly, looking out over the Greenwich lawn.
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“Who?” Elena asked, frowning. “Lucian signed the papers. He’s locked out of the accounts, stripped of his power, and isolated in Manhattan.”
“Lucian isn't a rat, Elena,” I replied, turning away from the window with a cold, calculating smile. “He’s a cornered animal. And animals in cages always try to bite the hand that locked the door.”
