Chapter 9 - Dinner with Wolves
The warehouse smelled like river water, dust, and burned metal.
Stefano pulled me behind an engine block while another shot punched into the concrete where my shoulder had been.
"Are you hit?" he asked.
"No."
"Stay behind me."
"That strategy nearly got you shot."
"You tackled me."
"You're welcome."
Even in the dark, I heard the edge of a laugh. It lasted half a second.
Then he became the man his enemies feared.
He moved low, listened, counted the intervals between footsteps overhead. When the shooter shifted position, Stefano fired once at a hanging chain. The chain dropped, dragging a steel hook across the catwalk with a violent crash.
The shooter flinched into view.
Stefano's next shot struck the railing beside him. "Drop it."
The rifle clattered down.
Within minutes, Marco's team entered from the rear and secured the building. Vincent was gone.
Claire had never been there.
Her phone contained one new video.
Vincent sat at a long dining table in a private club I recognized from newspaper photographs. Claire sat beside him, pale and furious, no longer tied.
"Nora," Vincent said to the camera, "your sister wants to explain herself. Stefano knows the address. Midnight dinner. Bring the original ledger and come dressed as requested."
Claire leaned toward the camera.
"Don't come."
Vincent smiled and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"She says that now."
The video ended.
Stefano's expression was murderous.
"What club?" I asked.
"Belladonna."
"Yours?"
"Was my father's. Vincent controls it now."
"Then he wants an audience."
"Yes."
I looked at the red dress beneath my coat.
"Good."
Stefano stared at me. "No."
"He wants to humiliate you and scare me. That means he needs me alive long enough to perform."
"You are not bait."
"Stop deciding what I am."
His anger vanished as quickly as it came.
I stepped closer.
"You said not to let you make the choice alone. So don't. We go in together."
At eleven-forty, the Belladonna Club glowed above the river like a jeweled knife.
Inside were politicians, businessmen, judges, and men who stopped talking when Stefano entered.
I removed my coat.
The red dress changed the room.
Someone dropped a glass.
At the far end, Vincent rose from the head of the table.
Claire sat on his right.
And on his left sat a woman I had not seen since my mother's funeral.
My aunt Teresa.
May you like
She smiled at me.
"There she is," she said. "Ruth's favorite daughter."
