Chapter 9 - Cleaning the Shadows
The moment of raw humanity did not soften the lethal architect within Damien Moretti; it sharpened him to a razor edge.
By four o’clock, the sky over Lake Michigan was turning a bruised slate-gray. In the conservatory, the two girls had exhausted themselves with play and were curled together on the plush velvet sofa, fast asleep with their cheeks touching, Ruby’s arm thrown over Sophie’s lace dress. Clara sat beside them, watching them breathe with a soft, protective vigil.
Damien stood in the study, fastening the platinum cufflinks of his brown suit jacket. His Kimber nine-millimeter was holstered tightly beneath his arm, and his eyes had turned back to polished granite.
“Marco,” Damien said into his secure radio. “Is Vincent in the building?”
“Stepping into the private elevator right now, Boss,” Marco’s voice crackled back. “He thinks this is an emergency syndicate council regarding the docks.”
“Send him up alone. Keep his drivers downstairs in the garage. Disarm them.”
“Understood.”
Two minutes later, the elevator doors chimed, and Vincent Vane strolled into the penthouse foyer. He was forty-two, sleek, wearing an expensive charcoal three-piece suit, an arrogant smile plastered across his face as he smoothed his manicured silver-streaked hair.
“Damien!” Vincent called out, his voice booming with false camaraderie. “What’s the crisis? Marco looked like someone died in the lobby.”
Damien walked out of the study, his hands resting casually inside his trouser pockets. He stopped ten paces away, his broad frame blocking the corridor leading to the conservatory.
“Five years ago, Vincent,” Damien said smoothly, his tone conversational, almost light. “The night of the fire at St. Jude’s.”
Vincent’s smile flickered, a micro-fracture of unease rippling across his eyes before he recovered. “What about it, brother? That wound’s old. We buried the Marcones for that.”
“Did we?” Damien tilted his head. He pulled his right hand from his pocket and held up the silver blackbird necklace, letting it dangle from its chain. The tiny onyx eye glinted under the chandelier. “Do you remember this?”
Vincent’s skin lost every trace of its bronze glow, turning the color of wet chalk. His eyes locked onto the pendant, and for a fleeting second, his gaze darted toward the private elevator behind him.
“I had two made, Vincent,” Damien continued, taking one slow, measured step forward. “One was buried with an empty casket. You brought me the ashes from the nursery, remember? You swore to me you saw the crib consumed.”
“Damien… I don’t know where you got that, but—”
“Clara Carter is in my conservatory,” Damien interrupted, his voice dropping into a deadly, rhythmic cadence. “She was the nurse in the storage room. She heard you tell your men to smother both incubators to clear the succession. She heard you order the hit on two newborn infants.”
Vincent reached violently for the snub-nosed revolver concealed in his waistband.
He never cleared leather.
Damien crossed the distance in a blur of explosive violence. His left hand clamped onto Vincent’s wrist like an iron vise, twisting the joint until the sickening snap of breaking bone echoed through the foyer. Vincent screamed, the revolver clattering uselessly against the marble.
Before Vincent could recover, Damien’s right hand gripped his throat, lifting the grown man off his feet and slamming him brutally against the reinforced plate glass overlooking the Chicago skyline. The city stretched out hundreds of feet below them, indifferent and cold.
“I won’t kill you in this house,” Damien whispered into Vincent’s ear, his voice so quiet, so terrifyingly calm that Vincent began to sob in terror. “My daughters are sleeping in the next room. Their ears will not hear the gunshot that ends your worthless existence.”
Damien released his grip slightly, allowing Vincent to slide to his knees on the marble, gasping for air while clutching his shattered wrist.
Marco stepped out of the elevator, two armed enforcers flanking him.
May you like
“Take him to the southern shipyard,” Damien commanded without looking back. “Put him in the container. Make sure it takes until sunrise.”
“Yes, Mr. Moretti,” Marco responded coldly. They dragged the weeping, broken underboss into the elevator, the doors sliding shut to swallow his muffled pleas.
