Chapter 4 - Shadows in the Suburbs
The drive to Luca and Sophie's suburban home took twelve minutes at eighty miles per hour through slick, rain-soaked streets. The silence in the SUV was suffocating. The warmth and easy intimacy of the loft had been stripped away, replaced by the lethal operational efficiency of Rocco's real world.
When they arrived, blue flashing lights were nowhere to be found. Instead, three unmarked black sedans were parked at angles on the front lawn, headlights cutting through the darkness. Men in heavy raincoats stood sentinel along the perimeter, hands tucked inside their jackets.
Evelyn leaped out of the SUV before it had fully stopped, Rocco right behind her.
"Evelyn!" Sophie's voice cracked through the front foyer.
The front door hung off one hinge, its heavy wood splintered around the deadbolt. Sophie was sitting on the stairs wrapped in a wool blanket, clutching a mug of tea, while Luca stood over her with a bleeding scrape along his cheekbone.
Evelyn rushed past the armed men and threw her arms around her younger sister. "Sophie! Are you hurt? What happened?"
"I'm fine, Evie, I'm fine," Sophie sobbed into her shoulder. "Luca heard glass break downstairs. They didn't want the jewelry. They were tearing through the study."
Rocco walked in, his presence immediately lowering the temperature in the room. Luca looked up at his older brother, guilt and rage warring in his eyes.
"Who was it?" Rocco asked, his voice low and level, more terrifying than any shout.
"Moretti's younger crew," Luca muttered, touching his bruised jaw. "They were looking for the Sinclair Hotel zoning permits and the renovation deeds. When they didn't find them in the safe, they smashed the place. Left a message."
Rocco walked into the adjacent home office. Evelyn followed, despite Sophie's warning grasp.
The office was ransacked. Books torn from shelves, computer monitors shattered on the floor. But on the pristine white wall above the mahogany desk, words were spray-painted in red:
*TELL ROCCO THE SINCLAIR BELONGS TO NEWARK. BACK OFF OR THE SISTERS BLEED.*
Evelyn stared at the wall, her breath catching in her throat. The sisters. Not just Sophie. Her too.
"They've been tracking you," Rocco said, his back turned to her. His fists were clenched so tightly at his sides that the knuckles showed stark white. "They saw you leave the banquet with me tonight."
"This is insane," Evelyn whispered, the reality of the Ventresca family crashing down on her like a freight train. "This is just real estate! It's an old historic hotel!"
"The Sinclair sits on three acres of federal transit corridors," Rocco explained without turning. "Whoever controls the renovation contracts controls the primary freight routes between Albany and New Jersey. Moretti thought Luca was the weak link. He thought he could scare my family into ceding the contract."
He turned slowly. His gray eyes were pitch black with fury. "He made a mistake bringing your name into this."
"Rocco, call the police," Evelyn pleaded, stepping toward him. "Look at this! This is home invasion, assault, extortion—"
"The police won't stop a Moretti hit squad, Evelyn," Luca spoke up bitterly from the doorway. "If we file a report, they go underground, wait two weeks, and hit your workshop next. They'll burn your inventory. They'll wait for you in the parking lot."
The cold truth struck Evelyn in the chest. Her workshop. Her livelihood. Her life's work. It wasn't just a threat on paper; it was aimed directly at her throat.
Rocco stepped closer to her until he occupied her entire field of vision. "Listen to me, Evelyn. You and Sophie don't go back to your apartments. You don't take your cars. Frankie is taking Sophie to the estate upstate where Carmela has round-the-clock security."
"And me?" Evelyn asked, her voice shaking slightly despite herself.
"You stay with me," Rocco declared without hesitation. "Every second of every day until I eliminate this problem."
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"I can't just abandon my business, Rocco! I have clients, deliveries—"
"Your workshop is shut down until I say so," he cut in, his tone brokering zero argument. "You belong under my roof now. Because if Moretti touches a single hair on your head, Saratoga will burn, and I don't have the patience to rebuild it."
