Chapter 2 - The Golden Cage
The ride to the Moretti estate was bathed in a suffocating hush. Eleanor sat in the plush leather backseat of an armored Maybach, squeezed between two men whose shoulders were wider than doorframes. Outside the tinted windows, the neon pulse of Manhattan gave way to the winding, wooded darkness of upstate New York. Iron gates crested with the same weeping willow emblem opened into an estate that looked less like a home and more like an impenetrable fortress.
Inside the grand foyer, chandeliers hung like frozen waterfalls from sixty-foot ceilings. Oil paintings of stern-faced ancestors glared down at Eleanor as she was ushered into a cavernous private study. The walls were lined with dark mahogany and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, smelling heavily of aged whiskey and secrets.
Alessandro discarded his jacket, tossing it onto a leather wingback chair before pouring three fingers of amber liquid into a tumbler. He didn’t offer her any.
""Sit,"" he ordered, gesturing toward an ornate sofa.
Eleanor remained defiantly standing, crossing her arms to mask the tremor in her hands. ""I'm not sitting. Kidnapping a waitress isn't going to make whatever fairy tale your grandmother believes come true. If you think I'm some con artist trying to extort your family, check my bank account. I have eighty-four dollars and an overdue electric bill.""
Alessandro took a slow sip, his sharp jawline tightening as he studied her defiance. Most people shivered and begged for their lives in this room. This girl, wearing a cheap nylon waitress vest with a torn button, was glaring at him like he was an inconvenience on her subway route.
""A con artist would have presented forged papers, a sob story, and a lawyer,"" Alessandro noted coldly. ""You didn't even know what you were wearing. That locket belonged to Chiara Moretti. She was my father's sister, my aunt. Twenty-four years ago, our rival syndicate, the Valenti family, raided our safehouse in Rhode Island. The place burned to the ground. Chiara's body was pulled from the ashes, burned beyond recognition, but the pendant was missing. Along with her infant daughter.""
May you like
Eleanor felt the room tilt beneath her shoes. ""Her... daughter?""
""My grandmother never believed the baby died. For two decades, she bled our coffers dry hunting every orphanage from Boston to Florida. I thought it was senility. I thought it was grief eating away at an old woman's mind."" Alessandro set his glass down with a sharp click. ""Until tonight. You don't just have the locket, girl. You have Chiara’s jawline. You have her eyes. And if you are who my grandmother thinks you are, you aren't just an orphan. You are the sole legitimate heir to half of this empire.""
