Chapter 2 - The Scent of Old Blood
The hotel suite in River North was quiet, warm, and smelling faintly of dried lavender and fresh linen.
Leo was already fast asleep in the bedroom, exhausted from the long flight from Zurich, his favorite stuffed bear tucked under his chin. Through the half-open door, the soft, rhythmic sound of his breathing brought an anchor of sanity back to my spinning world.
In the living area, Mia was pacing across the Persian rug, clutching a mug of black coffee with both hands.
“Elena, you have to pack up and get on the morning flight back to Geneva,” Mia said, her voice tight with suppressed panic. “You saw his face. Dante isn't just suspicious—he knows. The second he runs the timeline through his head, he’ll have DNA specialists and private investigators outside this building.”
I sat on the sofa, holding my cold hands around a mug of peppermint tea.
“I cannot leave yet, Mia,” I replied quietly. “The cemetery diocese confirmed the final exhumation permit for Thursday morning. My father’s plot has to be relocated before the city redevelops the old parish cemetery.”
“Your father would tell you to protect your son!” Mia argued, stopping in front of me. “The Moretti family doesn't play by ordinary custody rules, Elena. You know what Dante’s world looks like. If Victoria finds out there is an illegitimate Moretti heir walking around Chicago, she will burn this city to the ground.”
A bitter, humorless laugh escaped my lips.
Victoria.
My older sister by two years. Beautiful, ruthless, and fiercely competitive. She had spent our entire childhood taking whatever belonged to me—my clothes, my friends, my father’s attention.
And finally, Dante.
For eight years, Victoria had smiled at family dinners, watching Dante keep me in a perpetual state of waiting. She had played the sympathetic, listening sister, constantly telling me that Dante was too wild, too dangerous, and too damaged by his family’s syndicate history to ever commit to a domestic life.
Then, three weeks after our final, devastating argument, Victoria had announced their engagement at our father’s sixty-fifth birthday party.
Dante had stood beside her with an unreadable, stony expression, claiming it was an ‘alliance of mutual understanding.’
The sharp buzz of my mobile phone on the coffee table shattered the silence.
The screen illuminated with an unknown Chicago local number.
Mia froze, staring down at the device. “Don't answer it.”
I hesitated for three seconds, then slid my thumb across the glass and lifted the receiver to my ear.
“Elena.”
The voice was not Dante’s.
It was smooth, cold, and dripping with an oily, aristocratic malice that I had not heard in forty-four months.
“Hello, Victoria,” I said, keeping my tone as flat as a marble slab.
A soft, theatrical chuckle echoed through the receiver.
“Welcome home, little sister,” Victoria purred. “Dante’s driver called my penthouse twenty minutes ago. It seems my husband had a very dramatic episode at the airport terminal.”
I tightened my grip on the phone until my knuckles turned white. “I am here for four days to relocate our father’s grave, Victoria. That is all.”
“Is that so?” Victoria’s tone dropped into a low, venomous hiss. “Then let me give you some sisterly advice, Elena. Take your little Swiss bastard and get back on an airplane tonight. Because if Dante tries to bring that child anywhere near our family estate, I will ensure the Department of Child Services receives a file on you that will tie you up in Cook County courts for the next ten years.”
“Are you threatening my son, Victoria?” I whispered, a lethal, protective fire suddenly flaring in my chest.
“I am protecting my marriage, darling,” Victoria replied smoothly. “Dante belongs to me. His name belongs to me. And whatever pathetic crumb you brought back from Europe will never hold a single penny of Moretti equity.”
The line went dead with a sharp, dismissive click.
I lowered the phone, looking toward the bedroom door where Leo slept peacefully under the soft lamp.
May you like
They thought I was still the quiet, obedient girl who had packed her bags and wept silently on an overseas flight four years ago.
They had forgotten that a mother defending her cub possesses teeth that no syndicate contract can ever break.
