Isabella froze, pale as bone. “You’re insane. My father will hear about this.”
“Call him,” Alessandro replied, adjusting his cuffs with terrifying elegance. “Tell him Don Moretti has re-evaluated the terms of our agreement.”
Isabella fled up the staircase. Alessandro turned back to Rosa, his eyes softening instantly.
“Mr. Bruno,” he called. The old butler stepped out from the doorway. “Move Rosa and Lily into the east wing suites on the third floor. Assign four of my personal security guards to their door. No one enters without my written clearance. Not Isabella, not her bodyguards, not the family lawyers.”
“Mom, don’t stop me.” Rosa’s eyes went wide with alarm. “Alessandro, no! The servants will talk— the other families will know!”
“Let them talk,” Alessandro growled softly, touching his daughter’s soft cheek with his thumb. “My daughter will never sleep on a pantry floor again.”
The East Wing Prisoner
By noon, the third-floor east wing — locked and shuttered since Alessandro’s mother’s death twenty-six years ago — was unlocked. Sunlight poured onto hardwood floors and antique French furniture. Lily ran barefoot across the plush Persian rugs, giggling, chasing her stuffed rabbit Bun. “Look, Mama! Big water! Big boats!”
Alessandro walked in carrying a silver tray of pastries, fruit, warm milk for Lily, and two espressos. “She likes the sun,” he said softly. “She has never seen it from this high up,” Rosa replied. “She is used to the small window near the kitchen garbage bins.”
Alessandro flinched. “I have called a meeting of the inner council for six o’clock tonight. My lieutenants are coming from Brooklyn and Staten Island.”
“What are you going to tell them?”
“The truth. Lily is a Moretti. She will be formally recognized as my sole heir.”
“Are you out of your mind?!” Rosa shouted. “You are engaged to Isabella Romano! The truce depends on that wedding! If your captains find out you are breaking the agreement for a maid and her child, half your family will mutiny! Vincent Romano will launch an all-out war!”
“Let them try,” Alessandro said.
“You think you are protecting us, but you are putting a target on Lily’s chest! Right now, she is just a little girl nobody notices. The moment you put the Moretti name on her, every assassin from here to Chicago will know that the fastest way to break Don Alessandro is to hurt his daughter!”
Alessandro looked at Lily, curiously reaching for a strawberry. He knew Rosa was right. In his world, love was not a shield; it was a vulnerability.
“Vincent Romano is coming to New York,” he said quietly. “Isabella called her father two hours ago. His private jet lands at JFK at four o’clock. He is coming here with twenty of his top enforcers to demand an explanation for why his daughter was threatened in my house.”
“Alessandro… please. Let me take Lily and leave. We can disappear—”
“No. You hid from me for four years, Rosa. You suffered alone, worked yourself to the bone, and carried my child in silence to keep her safe. Your hiding days are over.”
“I am going to do what my father should have done thirty years ago. I am going to crush the Romanos, secure my bloodline, and make sure no one ever makes you bow your head in this house again.”
The suite door swung open. Leo, Alessandro’s chief of security, stepped in, pale and sweating. “Boss. Vincent Romano’s convoy just rammed through the outer gate. He didn’t wait for four o’clock. He’s in the courtyard right now with fifteen armed men.”
Alessandro didn’t flinch. “Tell Mr. Bruno to prepare the formal dining room. And bring my father’s iron chest from the vault.”
The Lion in the Dining Room
The formal dining room of the Moretti estate was built in 1920 — a thirty-foot oak table, heavy red velvet curtains, and portraits of past Moretti Dons staring down from paneled walls. Vincent Romano sat at the head of the table. At sixty-two, the head of the Chicago syndicate was broad-shouldered, iron-grey hair, a thick mustache, eyes as cold as a frozen lake. Behind him stood eight Chicago enforcers. Isabella sat to his right, a victorious, cruel smirk on her lips.
Alessandro stepped in alone. “Vincent. You made poor time from the airport.”
Vincent set his scotch down with a heavy THUD. “Cut the pleasantries, Moretti. My daughter called me crying three hours ago. She tells me you put your hands on her, threatened to put her in a box, and insulted the Romano name over a housemaid and her bastard child.”
Alessandro leaned back, chin on steepled fingers. “Isabella exaggerated.”
“You put your hand on the banister! You threatened my life in front of the servants!”