Chapter 9 - Shadows in the Wings
Her eyes were not the eyes of a penitent.
There was no guilt in the clear, icy blue of her gaze, no remorse for the three years of agony she had inflicted upon him, and no apology for the empty grave in Mount Carmel. Her expression was an impenetrable fortress of maternal defiance, backed by an ancient, quiet anger that burned with the cold intensity of dry ice. She looked at Vincent not as a lost love, but as a dangerous predator who had wandered into the sanctuary of her den.
She did not rise. She remained on her knees on the cold limestone floor, her body angled to shield the boy from Vincent’s reach, her fingers splayed protectively across the child’s small ribs.
Behind Vincent, the sharp, crystalline clatter of glass breaking on stone shattered the quiet of the conservatory.
Sophia had stepped out from the shadows of the citrus grove. The two Baccarat champagne flutes had slipped completely from her fingers, striking the edge of the limestone terrace and exploding into a dozen glittering shards that scattered across the floor, splashing vintage Dom Pérignon across her black sequined hem.
Sophia was staring at the tableau before her, her hands trembling as they hovered near her throat. She looked at Anna in the red gown; she looked at the little boy with Vincent’s gray eyes; and she looked at the back of Vincent’s rigid, paralyzed frame.
Every dream Sophia had harbored for the last eighteen months—the quiet hope that she could heal the wounded boss of Chicago, the belief that they could rebuild the innocent love they had shared before the syndicate had taken him, the quiet expectation that she would eventually wear the Moretti diamond and sit at the head of the Lake Forest estate—crumbled into meaningless dust in the space of three seconds.
She was an interloper. An ornamental stand-in who had been keeping the seat warm while the real queen was in hiding.
“Vincent…” Sophia breathed, her voice a thin, broken wail that barely carried across the humid conservatory.
Vincent did not turn his head. He didn't even flinch at the sound of the breaking glass. The entire universe had contracted down to the three feet of space separating his polished black boots from the hem of the scarlet silk gown.
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His voice was gone. His lungs felt as though they were filled with wet sand. He wanted to demand an explanation; he wanted to scream her name; he wanted to know who had forged the dental records, which federal agency had relocated her, and who had dared to touch his wife and son without his permission. He wanted to pull his weapon and declare war on whatever entity had constructed this monstrous, three-year deception.
Yet, standing before the boy who carried his blood, the ruthless don of Chicago was completely, utterly powerless. He was afraid that if he raised his voice, if he allowed even a fraction of the violence that defined his life to leak into the room, the child would cry. And the thought of making his own son weep terrified Vincent more than twenty federal indictments.
