Chapter 8 - THE RIVAL SYNDICATE STEPS IN
By midnight, the apartment was quiet.
Too quiet.
I sat by the window watching the yellow cabs streak down Madison Avenue.
A soft knock echoed at the private foyer door.
Not Dante.
Dante didn’t knock.
He broke locks or used keys.
I slipped my hand into my coat pocket, wrapping my fingers around a small pearl-handled revolver my father had left me before he passed.
I walked down the dark hallway.
“Who is it?” I asked through the heavy oak.
“An old friend of your husband’s,” a smooth, gravelly voice answered.
Nico Valenti.
My stomach tightened.
The man who had laughed loudest at Dante’s joke in the ballroom.
“We have nothing to talk about, Nico.”
“I think we have everything to talk about, Elena,” Nico replied smoothly.
“May I come in, or must we conduct business through twelve inches of reinforced wood?”
I unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open six inches, keeping the security chain latched.
Nico stood in the dim hallway wearing an immaculate cashmere overcoat.
A quiet smile played on his lips.
“You’ve caused quite a stir in the city tonight,” Nico said, gesturing to the hallway.
“Dante is tearing his offices apart looking for you.”
“Tell him I’m hard to find.”
“I’m not here on Dante’s behalf,” Nico’s smile widened slightly.
“I’m here for myself.”
“Go on.”
“You control fifty percent voting shares of Caruso Atlantic Holdings.”
“I control a rival shipping syndicate that has been trying to crush Dante for five years.”
“If you pool your shares with my faction, Elena, we can oust him entirely by dawn.”
“You’ll be the sole queen of the underground, and I’ll take the docks.”
I looked at him, feeling a wave of cold disgust.
“You think I’m going to hand my husband’s empire to his worst enemy just because he insulted me?”
“It’s not revenge,” Nico corrected.
“It’s business.”
“And Dante made it personal first.”
I unlatched the security chain and swung the door wide open.
Nico raised an eyebrow, expecting me to invite him in.
Instead, I raised my father’s revolver and pressed the cold steel barrel directly against the center of Nico Valenti’s expensive cashmere chest.
Nico froze.
The smile vanished from his face instantly.
“Mrs. Caruso—!”
“Listen to me very carefully, Nico,” I whispered, my voice colder than winter ice.
“Dante is an arrogant, unfaithful fool.”
“He is my arrogant, unfaithful fool.”
“If I decide to destroy him, I will do it myself.”
“If you ever approach my door again offering to pick the bones of my family, I won't just point a gun at your chest.”
“I’ll pull the trigger.”
“Do we understand each other?”
Nico swallowed hard, beads of sweat forming on his brow.
“Crystal clear, Elena,” he rasped.
“Good.”
“Now get out of my building before I forget how to use the safety switch.”
Nico backed away slowly into the elevator lobby, pressing the down button with trembling fingers.
When the doors closed, I finally lowered the gun.
My hands were shaking.
Adrenaline crashed through my veins like ice water.
I wasn’t just fighting Dante anymore.
May you like
I had stepped into a war zone.
And there was no turning back.
