Chapter 11 - The Contract of Secrets Exposed
Two days after the incident at the gala, Roman was recovering rapidly under Sadi’s meticulous care in the master suite.
The Moretti syndicate had collapsed entirely. With Salvatore dead and their leadership decimated, the remaining captains had surrendered unconditionally to Rossi Enterprises, cementing Roman as the undisputed, absolute ruler of the city's commercial and underground empire.
However, a new threat emerged from an entirely unexpected front: Brenda Miller.
Having seen the breaking news of the shootout at the gala and hearing rumors of Derek’s sudden arrest by federal authorities, Brenda arrived at the iron gates of the Rossi compound in a state of manic, hysterical greed.
Sadi agreed to see her in the grand formal drawing room on the first floor.
Brenda sat on a cream-colored velvet sofa, holding a designer handbag she couldn't afford, her eyes darting frantically across the priceless oil paintings, crystal chandeliers, and armed guards stationed discreetly by the French doors.
"Sadi, darling!" Brenda cried, leaping up and attempting to throw her arms around her daughter.
Sadi took a step back, maintaining a cool, polite distance. "Hello, Mother. What are you doing here?"
Brenda’s affectionate facade slipped slightly, replaced by an anxious, calculating glint. "What am I doing here? My daughter is living with a mob boss who got shot on the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times! Do you have any idea what this is doing to Chloe’s social circle? The wedding is next week, and people are asking if our family is involved in organized crime!"
"Roman is a legitimate developer, Mother," Sadi said smoothly, leaning against the marble fireplace. "The charges against his businesses were dropped yesterday. What do you actually want?"
Brenda opened her handbag, pulling out a folded piece of paper—a copy of an old employment contract Sadi had signed when she first started working as a domestic cleaner for the estate eighteen months ago.
"I found this in your old desk at home," Brenda said, her voice dropping into a venomous, triumphant hiss. "A domestic service contract. Signed by you. You were his maid, Sadi. This entire engagement is a sham, isn't it? He hired you to give him an alibi, and now you're pretending to be high society!"
Sadi felt a brief, cold sting of old childhood betrayal, but she didn't waver. "And what do you plan to do with that piece of paper, Mother?"
"Chloe’s fiancé needs five hundred thousand dollars to buy into his accounting partnership," Brenda declared, her eyes gleaming with shameless extortion. "And your father and I need our mortgage cleared. If Roman Rossi deposits one million dollars into our family trust by tomorrow morning, this contract stays in my purse. If not... I’ll give an exclusive interview to every tabloid in the Midwest."
Before Sadi could speak, the heavy double doors of the drawing room swung open with a thunderous crack.
Roman Rossi stepped into the room.
He wore a dark charcoal suit, his right arm resting in a black silk sling, but his presence was so terrifyingly dominant that the temperature in the room seemed to plummet below freezing. Two armed guards followed him, locking the doors behind them.
Brenda gasped, clutching her purse against her chest, shrinking back onto the sofa like a cornered animal.
"Mr... Mr. Rossi," Brenda stammered, her voice shaking violently.
Roman didn't look at her. He walked directly to Sadi, leaned down, and kissed her softly on the forehead before turning his merciless, dark eyes onto her mother.
"You have five seconds to put that paper on the table, Brenda," Roman said, his voice terrifyingly quiet.
Brenda trembled, her fingers shaking so hard she dropped the contract onto the glass coffee table.
Roman didn't even look at the document. He snapped his fingers, and Dante stepped forward, handing Roman a thick, leather-bound dossier. Roman dropped the dossier onto Brenda’s lap.
"Open it," Roman commanded.
With trembling hands, Brenda flipped open the folder. Her face drained of all color until she looked like a corpse.
Inside were hundreds of pages of bank statements, forged signatures, and tax fraud documents detailing Brenda’s illegal embezzlement of forty-five thousand dollars from the Naperville Community Church charity fund over the last six years—money she had used to pay for Chloe’s private school tuition and designer dresses.
"You... you investigated me?" Brenda choked out, tears of absolute panic welling in her eyes.
"I investigate every threat to my family," Roman said coldly, stepping closer until his shadow completely swallowed her. "If you ever speak to the press, if you ever demand a single dollar from Sadi again, or if you ever make her feel unwelcome in your presence, those documents will be on the desk of the Cook County State's Attorney within ten minutes."
Roman reached down, took the old employment contract from the table, and pulled a gold lighter from his pocket. He struck the flint, setting the paper ablaze, watching it turn to ash in his palm before letting it drop into the crystal ashtray.
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"Sadi was never my maid, Brenda," Roman whispered with lethal finality. "She was the queen of this house long before she knew it. Now get out of my sight before I decide to take your house as a handling fee."
Brenda scrambled off the sofa, sobbing in terror, and fled through the French doors without looking back.
