Chapter 4 - The Weight of a Crown
For three long seconds, nobody moved.
The air in the workshop felt thick enough to chew. Maso stood ready to draw his weapon between us, while Leah watched with guarded clinical curiosity. Camila shrank back into her armchair, pulling the wool blanket higher over her shoulders.
I didn't run. I didn't scream. I stood up slowly from my workbench, resting my palms on the scarred wood, and looked straight into the eyes of the man who had supposedly broken my heart.
—You’re back early from Zurich, —I said, my voice as steady as steel. —Or was the emergency council meeting just another cover story?
Alessandro took a slow step forward, ignoring Maso’s warning glare. He stopped three feet away from me, his chest rising and falling heavily beneath his damp coat. He looked exhausted—not the fatigue of a businessman who had flown across an ocean, but the bone-deep weariness of a king whose castle was burning down around him.
—There was no meeting, —Alessandro admitted, his voice rough. —I caught wind that Victor had mobilized a hit squad to intercept the courier carrying the ledger. I flew to Zurich to draw his assassins out into the open so they wouldn't look for the real package here in Chicago. But I miscalculated. I didn't know Victor had targeted Camila directly at our party.
—You used me, Alessandro, —I said, the words cutting through the room like a scalpel. —You walked into my birthday dinner with another woman, humiliated me in front of hundreds of people, and let me walk out into the cold alone, all while playing a dangerous chess game with a girl’s life and my father’s memory.
Alessandro flinched. It was the first time in six years of marriage I had ever seen my husband—the most feared syndicate boss in the Midwest—show a crack in his impenetrable armor.
—I had no choice, —he murmured, taking another step closer, his hand reaching out tentatively before stopping himself, as if he knew he no longer had the right to touch me. —If I had looked at you during that dinner, if I had shown a single ounce of affection toward you, Victor’s spies would have marked you as my vulnerability. They would have used you to get to the ledger. Leaving you was the only way to keep you off their radar.
—And my father’s workshop? —I demanded, my voice cracking slightly as the grief I had buried years ago clawed its way back to the surface. —Was letting him die in that explosion another way to keep me safe?
Alessandro’s eyes widened, a look of pure anguish flashing across his features. He looked at Camila, then back at me. —You know about the gas lines?
—I know that Victor murdered my father, and you spent three years protecting his killer under the guise of family loyalty, —I whispered, tears finally burning my eyes, though I refused to let them fall.
—I never protected Victor, —Alessandro said, his voice dropping into a fierce, absolute growl. —I spent the last three years building an airtight federal RICO case against him, using every offshore account and shell company he operated. I couldn't just put a bullet in his head, Adriana—if I did, his captains would have plunged the city into a full-scale drug and weapons war that would have killed thousands of innocents, including you. I needed the entire ledger. I needed the microfilm. And you just pulled it out of the fire.
He looked down at the battered laptop on my workbench, where the encrypted financial records were still glowing against the dark screen.
May you like
—You found it, —he breathed, disbelief and awe washing over his face. —You found the master key.
—I didn't find it for you, Alessandro, —I replied coldly. —I found it because your war landed on my doorstep. Now, tell me how we end this.
