Chapter 1 - The Ghost from Zurich
The heavy crystal tumbler settled against the white linen tablecloth with a muted, chilling clink. The twelve men surrounding the table held their breath. Lorenzo looked as if he had swallowed glass, his hand frozen mid-air with his napkin crumpled into a damp ball. Vittorio Bellini’s dark, calculating eyes remained pinned on me, unblinking beneath thick silver brows. Beside me, Dante shifted, his broad frame tense beneath his tailored charcoal suit, his jaw squared so hard I could hear the microscopic grind of his teeth.
"You asked what I did in Europe, Don Vittorio," I said, my voice gliding across the table in the melodic, precise cadence of Milanese high society. "Before I took my husband's name, I spent six years managing international risk assessment and compliance restructuring for Banque de Berne in Zurich. Before that, I drafted maritime trade covenants for the Mediterranean Logistics Syndicate in Genoa."
A collective murmur broke out among the three lawyers seated at the far end of the room. The lead attorney frantically flipped through his leather-bound brief, his eyes darting toward me with wide, panicked recognition.
"Banque de Berne..." Vittorio muttered, his fingers tapping rhythmically against the mahogany table. "You're Sophie Vance. The analyst who flagged the port authority embargo in Naples three years ago."
"The very same," I replied, flashing an exquisite, razor-thin smile. "I saved your cousin Marco from losing forty million euros in seized cargo, Vittorio. Though judging by your son’s charming commentary tonight, gratitude isn't a family heirloom."
Lorenzo cleared his throat, his face flushing crimson. "Look, I was only joking—"
"Silence, idiot," Vittorio snapped without even looking at his son. The old man leaned back, crossing his hands over his stomach. He wasn't smiling anymore. The grandfatherly facade of a tired patriarch had evaporated, replaced by the lethal sharpness that had kept him atop New York’s underworld for three decades. "You married an auditor, Dante. And you brought her to a private table without telling me she once had my financial records on her screen."
Dante placed his heavy hand over mine on the table. It was supposed to look like a protective husbandly gesture, but I felt the tremor of suppressed fury in his fingertips. "My wife’s past credentials are her own, Vittorio. We are here to discuss our current distribution network."
"No," Vittorio said, raising a single finger. "We are discussing why your wife just pointed out a structural flaw that my legal team spent two months concealing. Tell me, Mrs. Moretti... what else did you see in that contract on your husband's desk?"
I looked at Dante. For months, he had treated our marriage as a convenient domestic arrangement—a trophy blonde to host charity galas and keep his home elegant while he ruled Chicago's bloodstained streets. He thought he possessed a pretty ornament.
May you like
"I saw an arbitration clause tied to a dummy holding company in Cyprus," I said smoothly, turning my gaze back to Vittorio. "A clause that ensures if customs ever seizes the shipments, Dante absorbs one hundred percent of the criminal liability while your family collects the insurance payout."
The temperature in the private dining hall plummeted below zero. Dante slowly turned his head to look at me, and in his dark, stormy eyes, I saw something I had never seen before: genuine, unadulterated shock.
