Chapter 2 - The Rules of the Underworld
The honeymoon period lasted precisely eighteen hours.
By 7:15 Wednesday morning, Claire had already realized that working for Moretti Holdings was less like standard hospitality management and more like orchestrating an air traffic control tower in an active combat zone.
She arrived wearing her best navy wrap dress—the one that flattered her waist, hid the wear on her shoes, and made her feel armored. Her desk was situated in an open mahogany antechamber directly outside Dominic’s private office, flanked by double frosted-glass doors that remained shut whenever certain men in tracksuits or thousand-dollar Italian leather coats came visiting.
Sal, the scarred lieutenant who looked as though he had survived three separate knife fights and one small explosion, dropped a heavy leather binder onto Claire’s blotter with a solid thud.
“The protocol,” Sal rasped, leaning over her desk with a faint scent of espresso and clove tobacco.
Claire opened the binder. It was filled with names, color-coded index tabs, license plate numbers, and specific dietary restrictions.
“Green tabs,” Sal explained, tapping a thick finger against the page, “are legitimate city officials, bankers, and restaurant suppliers. They get polite hellos, San Pellegrino, and twenty-minute meetings. Yellow tabs are union bosses, aldermen, and lawyers. They get whatever espresso Dominic is drinking, and you interrupt them after fifteen minutes with an urgent phone call from New York.”
“And the red tabs?” Claire asked, flipping to the back section where several pages were sealed with red adhesive tape.
Sal’s scarred jaw tightened. “Red tabs don’t get coffee. Red tabs get Marco standing directly behind their chair. If a red tab shows up without an appointment, you hit the silent foot pedal under your knee and you walk calmly into the breakroom until you hear two knocks on the wall.”
Claire stared at the pedal beneath her desk. It was painted bright red, bolted securely into the hardwood floor. “Has anyone ever used the foot pedal?”
“The last girl did,” Sal said flatly. “Then she cried for forty-five minutes and moved to Ohio.”
Claire tilted her chin up. “Well, Sal, Ohio is terribly flat, and I happen to like Lake Michigan. So you can save the ghost stories for someone who hasn't survived seven consecutive Mother’s Day brunches at the Palmer House.”
Sal looked at her for a long three seconds. Then, slowly, the corner of his mouth twitched upward. “You’ve got brass, Bennett. I’ll give you that.”
By noon, Claire had audited three months of backlogged invoicing for the Drake Ballroom restoration, catching an eighteen-thousand-dollar discrepancy in concrete supply billing. She marched straight into Dominic’s office without knocking—a cardinal sin that caused both Dominic and Marco to look up in sharp astonishment.
“Your supplier in Cicero is overcharging you on aggregate weight,” Claire announced, slamming the invoices down on his desk. She leaned over, pointing her pen at the line items. “They’re billing for thirty-ton hauls, but the city transit scale tickets stamped on the back show twenty-four tons gross. Someone is skimming six tons of gravel per truckload. Over two months, that’s eighteen grand.”
Dominic didn’t look at the papers immediately. Instead, his dark eyes rose from the page to Claire’s flushed face, lingering on the determined set of her jaw and the curve of her throat.
“You checked the weigh-station stamps?” he asked, his voice deceptively quiet.
“Of course I checked the stamps. That’s basic inventory control. If you pay people for gravel they didn’t dump, you’re running a charity, not a construction firm.”
Marco covered his mouth with a fist.
Dominic picked up the top invoice, reviewed the red ink where Claire had calculated the difference down to the penny, and set it down again. “Call Anthony Varga. Tell him I’m withholding eighteen thousand dollars from his next draw, and if he complains, tell him Miss Bennett will explain the arithmetic to him in person.”
“Me?” Claire blinked. “Isn't Anthony Varga the man who allegedly threw someone off the Navy Pier in 2021?”
Dominic leaned back in his leather chair, a faint gleam of amusement dancing in his eyes. “Anthony is a coward who preys on people who can't read numbers. He won't throw you off any pier, Miss Bennett. Especially not when he realizes you’re the gatekeeper to his checks.”
Dominic stood and walked around the desk, pausing inches away. He reached out, his fingers brushing near her shoulder—not touching, but close enough that she felt the radiated heat of his body. He smoothly took the pen from her fingers and tucked it behind her ear.
“You work fast,” he murmured, his gaze dropping to her mouth before returning to her eyes. “And you look magnificent when you’re irritated.”
Claire’s heart slammed against her ribs. She was an employee; she knew the boundaries. Men like Dominic Moretti didn't fall for women with hips that split seam allowances and thighs that touched. They kept supermodels in high-rise condos along the Gold Coast.
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“I’m not irritated, Mr. Moretti,” she managed to say, keeping her voice as level as possible. “I’m efficient. And efficiency costs extra after six o’clock.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m wealthy,” Dominic whispered. “Get your coat. Mama insisted we take you to lunch at Carmine’s, and if we are late, she will make Sal eat raw garlic for an hour.”
