Chapter 18 - Whispers Across the Sound
The illusion of an isolated paradise shattered by late afternoon.
Inside the subterranean security bunker beneath the estate, Greco slammed a heavy steel folder onto the glass tactical desk. Adrien stood over the monitors, which displayed high-definition thermal sweeps of the surrounding woods along the Connecticut coastline.
"We caught two scouts on the eastern ridge," Greco reported grimly. "Dressed in civilian hiking gear, carrying high-frequency radio scanners and thermal scopes. They were transmitting live video feeds of the garden."
Adrien didn't look away from the screens. His jaw was clenched so tightly that the muscles in his cheek twitched. "Whose men?"
"Moretti's," Greco answered. "Specifically, Lorenzo Moretti's wet-work crew from South Brooklyn. But that's not the worst of it, boss. They weren't tracking you. They were tracking Miss Hart. They cross-referenced her mother’s social security records and traced the old bank accounts. Moretti knows who she is. And worse, Marcus Vance from the Five Families Council has called an emergency assembly for midnight."
Adrien's eyes narrowed into slits of ice. Marcus Vance was the oldest living don in New York, a man who believed strictly in the ancient, barbaric traditions of the syndicate. If Vance learned that Clara Belandi's heir was alive—and possessed the founding ledger—every hungry captain in the five boroughs would see Evelyn as either a target to be eliminated or a prize to be forced into marriage.
"They think I am weak because my children have their voices back," Adrien murmured, his voice deathly quiet. "They think a man who loves his family is a man who cannot pull a trigger."
"The Council wants you to bring her to the meeting, Adrien," Greco said quietly. "They claim that by ancient syndicate charter, Dominic's eldest granddaughter must present herself to prove her lineage, or surrender Clara’s inheritance to the common vault."
"They want to lure her out of these walls," Adrien snarled, turning around with lethal fury radiating from his towering frame. "They want to put a frightened girl in front of five hungry wolves and tear her apart to see how much of my empire they can carve out."
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"Are you going to refuse?"
"No," Adrien said, reaching for his overcoat. "I am going to the Council. But Evelyn will not walk into that snake pit as a supplicant. She will walk in as what she truly is: the rightful queen of the Belandi line, guarded by the devil himself."
