Chapter 13 - The Gilded Threat
Vanessa looked radiant, her head held high, completely shedding the humiliated tears she had wept on the kitchen tiles weeks ago. There was no trace of shame in her cold, calculating smirk.
When her eyes found mine across the chandelier-lit room, her lips curved into a razor-thin smile. She whispered something to the older man beside her.
Marco Torrisi didn't rush. He walked with a measured, deliberate limp, using his cane with rhythmic taps that seemed to echo over the hush of the crowd. He stopped five paces from where Luca and I stood.
"Luca," Torrisi said, his voice carrying the deep gravel of age and cigarettes. "You've grown into your father's broad shoulders. A pity you didn't inherit his taste in company."
His eyes flicked dismissively over me, lingering on the simple silver pendant resting at my throat—a gift Mrs. Moretti had given me on my birthday.
"You're trespassing, Torrisi," Luca responded, his voice dropping into that terrifyingly calm register that preceded bloodshed. "The city declared you deceased in 2009. Returning from the grave without my permission is an act of war."
"Is it?" Torrisi chuckled softly, gesturing toward Vanessa. "This young lady came to me with quite an interesting tale. She told me the proud Moretti syndicate was being run out of the pantry. She told me a little maid with flour on her hands was balancing the ledgers of a billion-dollar empire, while the true bloodlines were cast out into the cold."
Vanessa stepped forward, her perfume cloying and suffocating. "Did you really think you won, Elena?" she sneered, dropping the mask entirely. "You think serving peasant soup out of chipped bowls makes you royalty? You're an employee playing dress-up. Marco funded my father's first operations. He owns the titles to every dock from here to Milwaukee."
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Luca didn't shout. He didn't even draw a breath. He simply took half a step forward, towering over Torrisi with an aura so suffocating that the older man's two bodyguards instinctively reached beneath their tailored jackets.
"Say one more word about Elena," Luca whispered, "and I will finish the job the fire on Lake Michigan failed to complete fifteen years ago. Right here. In front of the governor."
