Chapter 3 - The Shadow of the Romano Family
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While Lucian stared in horror at the glowing laptop screen in the penthouse, three hundred miles away in a sprawling, heavily guarded estate outside of Boston, another man was reading a very different kind of message.
Don Salvatore Romano—head of the Boston syndicate and father to Bianca Romano—sat in his mahogany-lined study, swirling a glass of aged bourbon. Across from him sat his son, Dante, a brutal enforcer with a permanent sneer and cold, dead eyes.
“The Moretti girl has filed for divorce,” Dante said, tossing an encrypted tablet onto the desk. “Word from our insider in Manhattan says she hit Lucian with a full asset freeze and a federal indictment package within twenty-four hours of giving birth.”
Salvatore didn't flinch. He took a slow sip of bourbon, letting the amber liquid burn his throat before setting the glass down with a soft clack.
“Lucian is arrogant,” Salvatore murmured, his voice raspy with age and malice. “He thought he could juggle my daughter in a Mediterranean villa while his wife pushed out his heir in New York. He forgot that women from prosecutor families do not cry—they retaliate.”
“Does this affect our port acquisition deal?” Dante asked, leaning forward, his hands resting on his knees. “If the federal government seizes Moretti shipping lines, our pipeline from Europe goes dark.”
“It affects everything, you fool,” Salvatore snapped, his eyes flashing with sudden, sharp fury. “The Moretti syndicate and the Romano family are financially intertwined deeper than our family trees. If Serena Moretti exposes their ledgers, our accounts get frozen right alongside theirs. We cannot allow a bitter wife and a newborn baby to dismantle forty years of criminal enterprise.”
Dante grinned, a cruel, ugly expression that stretched across his scarred face. “Shall I take a team to Manhattan? A quiet message delivered to the hospital or the penthouse. Make the girl sign away her rights, drop the lawsuit, and hand over the encryption keys. If she refuses, well... accidents happen in the city every day.”
Salvatore raised a hand, stopping his son instantly.
“No,” the old don said slowly, shaking his head. “Lucian is already desperate. If you send guns into Manhattan right now, Lucian will smell blood and turn his entire army against us to protect his son. We play a more delicate game.”
“What game?”
“Bianca is still in Europe, but she is returning to New York tonight,” Salvatore said, a thin, venomous smile forming on his lips. “She thinks she is going to play the grieving mistress waiting in the wings for her mafia king. We will use her. We will let Bianca believe that if she can eliminate the newborn heir and convince Lucian that Serena engineered her own ruin, she will become the queen of the Moretti empire.”
Dante blinked, surprised by his father’s cold calculation. “You’re going to use your own daughter as a patsy?”
“Bianca is a pawn who thinks she’s a player,” Salvatore replied smoothly. “If she succeeds in neutralizing the baby and discrediting Serena, we absorb the Moretti empire entirely under the Romano banner. And if she fails—if Serena’s federal connections crush her—we simply cut Bianca loose and claim she acted independently of the family.”
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Dante nodded slowly, a dark chuckle rumbling in his chest. “Brilliant, Pop. I’ll make sure Bianca’s private flight lands at Teterboro right into our hands.”
“Move carefully,” Salvatore warned, standing up and walking toward the French doors that looked out over the snowy New York perimeter. “Serena Moretti is not some helpless mafia wife crying over a cheating husband. Her father was Thomas Vance—the man who put half the commission behind bars in the nineties. Her bloodline is colder than ours. If we underestimate her for even a second, she will bury us all.”
