Chapter 4 - Secrets in the Ink
The tension in the study thickened until it felt difficult to draw breath. Marco stared at the monitor, his knuckles turning white where they rested on the edge of the mahogany desk.
"Vincent," Marco whispered. "Vincent is the only lieutenant who carries that custom lighter. The anniversary piece you commissioned for the inner circle five years ago."
"Vincent is my blood," Dante said, though there was zero warmth in his voice. "He commands the docks and controls thirty percent of our logistics. If he's moving against me, he isn't acting alone."
Dante turned his focus back to me. His eyes swept over my mud-caked clothes and bruised collarbone. "Did you see his face?"
"No," I replied truthfully, my heart thumping against my ribs. "He had a balaclava pulled down. But he had a distinct voice. Raspy, like someone who smoked three packs of unfiltered cigarettes a day. And when he spoke into his phone, he had a slight rasp on the letter 'S'."
Marco looked at Dante. "That’s Vincent, boss. No question. He took shrapnel to the throat in Atlantic City back in 2018."
"We don't move on suspicion," Dante said coldly. "We move on certainty. Vincent has forty soldiers loyal to him stationed in the industrial district. If I accuse him without undeniable proof, half the family fractures into an open turf war before sunrise."
Dante walked to the double doors, opening them to reveal two guards stationed outside. "Prepare the east wing suite for Miss Montgomery. Put two men at her door. She does not leave the room, she does not touch a phone, and nobody except me or Marco enters."
"Wait a second!" I protested, stepping forward. "I'm not a prisoner here! You said yourself I saved your life!"
Dante turned, his face inches from mine. Up close, I could see the flecks of amber buried deep within his storm-gray irises. The raw power he radiated was overwhelming, a dangerous magnetism that made my breath catch in my throat.
"You're not a prisoner, Cara. You're the only living witness to treason inside the largest syndicate on the East Coast," Dante murmured, his voice dropping into an intimate, chilling register. "Out there, you are a loose end waiting to be tied with piano wire. In here, behind my steel and my guns, you are alive. Choose which one you prefer."
Without waiting for my answer, he nodded to the guards.
Two minutes later, I was ushered into a massive suite decorated in deep burgundy and dark oak. The bed was enormous, dressed in silk sheets, with French doors leading to a balcony that overlooked a courtyard guarded by patrol dogs and armed sentries.
I didn't sleep. I paced the oriental rug until the horizon turned a bruised purple. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the sound of that sickening crunch as Dante’s car breached the railing, and the bone-chilling question: *How did you know?*
At 7:00 AM, the suite door opened. Marco stood in the hallway, accompanied by a female attendant holding a clean, elegant change of dark designer clothes.
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"Get dressed," Marco commanded flatly. "The Boss called a mandatory council meeting in thirty minutes. You're going to sit behind the one-way mirror in the conference room. When Vincent speaks, you listen."
***
