Chapter 5 - The Poisoned Toast
The silence inside the cabin turned into a razor-sharp blade.
Luca didn't move.
His gun remained lowered, but his fingers tightened around the checkered grip.
“Say that again, Bella,” Luca ordered.
His voice was terrifyingly calm.
Isabella stepped inside the cabin, dripping wet.
She slammed the heavy oak door behind her and threw the deadbolt.
“I stole the travel logs from Monaco, Luca,” she pleaded, grabbing his soaked lapels.
“Antonio didn't fly in on a private charter. He came through the Port of Montreal by container ship.”
She pointed toward the back bedroom.
“Daniel met him at the rail yards three nights ago. Daniel gave him the master gate codes.”
My mind spun in wild circles.
Daniel?
The man who had just taken a bullet for Luca on the boat?
The man who had stood beside Luca for seven years?
“Daniel took a ricochet for me thirty minutes ago,” Luca said, his eyes narrowing.
“A graze!” Isabella shouted desperately.
“A controlled flesh wound to maintain his cover!”
She reached into her wet leather jacket and pulled out a damp satellite phone.
She shoved it into Luca’s hands.
“Look at the outbound texts! To Antonio’s burner number!”
Suddenly, the door to the back bedroom clicked open.
Daniel stepped out into the living room.
His shirt was off, showing the fresh white bandage across his shoulder.
His Glock was holstered at his hip, but his hands were empty.
He looked at Isabella.
Then he looked at Luca.
He saw the satellite phone in Luca’s hand.
Daniel didn't run.
He didn't draw his gun.
He just stopped in the hallway archway and let out a long, ragged sigh.
“Isabella,” Daniel said softly.
“You shouldn't have come here.”
Luca raised his 1911 in a fraction of a second.
The barrel aimed directly between Daniel's eyes.
“Is it true?” Luca demanded.
Daniel did not raise his hands.
He looked straight into the black hollow of Luca’s barrel.
“Yes,” Daniel said.
A heavy, suffocating gasp escaped my throat.
I stepped back against the stone fireplace.
The man who had protected the staff.
The man who had always seemed like the only moral soul in that bloody house.
“Why?” Luca asked.
A terrible crack formed in Luca’s voice.
A fracture of deep, agonizing betrayal.
“He has my mother, Luca,” Daniel whispered.
His voice cracked.
Tears welled in the hardened soldier’s eyes.
“Antonio took her from her retirement home in Naples six months ago.”
Daniel took a shaking breath.
“He sent me her wedding ring in an envelope. He told me if I didn't open the East Wing gate at 3:14 a.m., he would send me her fingers one by one.”
Daniel looked at Luca with raw agony.
“What was I supposed to do, Luca? He is your father! You know what he does to families!”
Luca’s gun hand didn't shake.
Not by a millimeter.
“You came to me,” Luca said, his voice dropping into a lethal abyss.
“You tell your Don when you are compromised. You don't let the enemy inside my gates.”
“He would have killed her before you could scramble a strike team!” Daniel yelled.
“And now?” Luca snarled.
“Now my estate is burning. My men are dead. And Antonio is consolidating power with the New York families!”
Daniel closed his eyes.
He stood tall, puffing out his chest.
“Then shoot me, boss,” Daniel said quietly.
“I broke my oath. I deserve the ditch.”
Luca pulled the hammer back on his pistol.
The mechanical click echoed off the stone walls like thunder.
Isabella looked away, burying her face in her hands.
My heart hammered against my throat.
I looked at Daniel.
A man trapped between an impossible choice.
A man who had refused to throw me under the bus when Vanessa attacked me.
A man who had shielded me with his own body during the firefight in the dining room.
“Luca, wait!” I shouted.
Luca didn't lower the gun.
“Stay out of this, Emma.”
“No!” I stepped forward, putting myself between Luca’s barrel and Daniel's chest.
“Emma, move!” Luca roared, his eyes blazing with fury.
“Listen to me!” I cried, holding my ground.
“Antonio wanted this! He planned this exact confrontation!”
Luca stared at me through the sight of his gun.
“He’s a traitor, Emma.”
“He’s leverage!” I yelled.
“Think like an accountant, Luca! Think like a strategist!”
I pointed toward the satellite phone in Luca’s hand.
“If Antonio thinks Daniel is still his inside man, Antonio will tell him where the New York commission is meeting! Antonio will tell him where Daniel's mother is being held!”
Luca’s jaw clenched so hard I heard his teeth grind.
The silence stretched for ten agonizing seconds.
Slowly.
Very slowly.
Luca de-cocked the hammer of the pistol.
He lowered the weapon to his side.
He stepped past me, invading Daniel's space until their foreheads almost touched.
Luca shoved the barrel of the gun hard under Daniel's chin.
“If you breathe a single word of our location to my father,” Luca whispered with terrifying intimacy,
“I will not kill you, Daniel.”
Luca's eyes burned with demonic fire.
“I will make you watch as I burn your entire lineage from the earth. Do you understand me?”
Daniel swallowed against the steel barrel under his jaw.
“I understand, boss.”
Luca stepped back.
“Give me your weapons.”
Daniel unclipped his holster and laid his Glock, his backup revolver, and his tactical knives on the wooden table.
“Sit down,” Luca ordered.
Daniel sat on the sofa, his head in his hands.
Luca turned toward his sister.
“How did Antonio track me? Why did you say New York is here?”
Isabella wiped her tears.
She pointed toward the satellite phone.
“The five families sent Salvatore Marcone. The head of the Genovese family.”
Luca froze.
“Marcone came to Chicago in person?”
“Yes,” Isabella said.
“Antonio promised him fifty percent of the Great Lakes shipping corridors in exchange for wiping you off the board.”
Isabella pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket.
“They’re hosting a victory banquet right now. At the Drake Hotel penthouse.”
Luca looked at the clock on the stone mantle.
4:45 a.m.
“The toast,” Luca murmured.
His eyes flashed with sudden, terrifying realization.
“What toast?” I asked.
Luca looked at me.
“Every time a new territory is transferred under the Commission rules, the Don must drink from the Founders' Chalice.”
He turned toward the table, picking up the titanium flash drive.
“And Vanessa?” Isabella asked.
Luca sneered.
“Vanessa will be pouring the wine.”
He turned to me.
“Emma, how fast can you write a system override that transmits that offshore ledger to every federal field office in the Midwest?”
I blinked.
“To the FBI?”
“To everyone,” Luca said.
“To the FBI. To Interpol. And most importantly, to Salvatore Marcone’s private encrypted terminal.”
My eyes widened.
“You’re going to show the New York boss that Antonio is robbing him?”
Luca’s smile was vicious.
“Antonio promised Marcone fifty percent of the profits. But that ledger proves Antonio has already liquidated the Chicago accounts into private trusts in Dubai.”
Luca grabbed an assault rifle from the rack and checked the chamber with a crisp snap.
“Marcone doesn't tolerate thieves.”
Luca looked at Daniel.
“You want to save your mother, Russo?”
Daniel looked up, his eyes burning with renewed hope.
“I’ll do anything, boss.”
“You’re going to call Antonio back on that burner phone,” Luca instructed.
“You’re going to tell him you shot me in the back of the head and dumped my body into Lake Michigan.”
Daniel nodded fiercely.
“And then?”
“And then,” Luca said, turning his lethal gaze toward the window overlooking the dark road,
“You’re going to tell him you have Marcus Vance’s daughter in custody, and you’re bringing her to the Drake Hotel as a wedding gift.”
My breath caught in my throat.
I stepped back.
“Me?”
Luca walked up to me.
He reached out and gently tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
His touch was warm, possessive, and completely intoxicating.
“You trust me, Emma?” he asked softly.
I looked into his storm-gray eyes.
This man was a monster to the world.
A ruthless mafia boss whose name made grown men weep.
Yet he had bandaged my wounds.
He had listened to my voice when thirty killers wanted me dead.
“I trust you,” I whispered.
Luca leaned down, his lips brushing against my forehead.
“Then put on your best dress, sweetheart.”
His voice dropped into a dark, thrilling promise:
“We’re crashing my father’s victory party.”
Suddenly, the front window of the cabin exploded into a million pieces.
A high-caliber sniper round tore through the wall, missing Luca’s head by two inches.
Outside, the roar of multiple high-powered engines shook the pine trees.
Headlights flooded through the shattered window, blinding us.
A loudspeaker boomed through the fog:
“LUCA MORETTI! DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND STEP OUT! WE HAVE THE PERIMETER ZEROED!”
It was Vanessa’s voice.
May you like
And she wasn't waiting for the Drake Hotel.
She had tracked Isabella’s satellite phone straight to our doorstep.
