Chapter 5 - The Velvet CageThe ride back to the Moretti Tower was conducted in absolute, heavy silence. The partition between the driver and the back of the stretch limousine was rolled up, leaving Nikolai and me alone in the dim, amber-lit interior.
I stared out the rain-slicked window as the neon lights of downtown Chicago smeared into ribbons of red and gold.
“You enjoyed that,” I murmured, not looking away from the glass.
“Watching my brother realize he just traded a kingdom for a glass slipper?” Nikolai asked, his voice smooth and amused. “I’d pay admission to see it twice.”
I turned my head to look at him. In the shadows of the limousine, his expression was unreadable, a mask of calculated control that had kept him at the top of Chicago’s underworld for a decade.
“It was a strategy for you,” I said, my voice dropping into a quiet, serious tone. “You needed the Hart voting shares to secure the council leadership. My appearance at the briefing wasn't just a convenient coincidence.”
Nikolai didn't deny it. He poured two fingers of scotch from the crystal decanter built into the armrest and handed the glass to me.
“Everything in my world is a strategy, Evelyn,” he said, his dark eyes locking onto mine with disarming honesty. “If I wanted a traditional wife who spent her afternoons at charity luncheons, I could have chosen a dozen different daughters from allied families. I chose you because you have steel in your spine.”
He leaned forward, resting his forearm on his knee.
“When Julian humiliated you in that ballroom,” Nikolai continued softly, “he didn't just insult my family by association. He proved he was an idiot who couldn't recognize value when it was standing right in front of him. I don’t tolerate idiots in my house, and I certainly don't let them win.”
I took a slow sip of the scotch, feeling the burn settle comfortably in my chest.
“And what happens in three weeks?” I asked. “When the council vote is finalized, and you are officially declared the head of the Moretti syndicate?”
“Then our contract enters its second phase,” Nikolai replied without missing a beat.
“Which is?”
“Which is the part where the rest of Chicago finds out that the Moretti marriage isn't a political arrangement,” he said, his voice dropping into a low, rumbling timbre that made my breath catch. “It’s a permanent annexation.”
Before I could process the implication of his words, the limousine glided smoothly into the subterranean parking garage of the Moretti Tower and came to a stop.
May you like
Nikolai opened his door, stepped out into the damp concrete air, and walked around the car to open my door, extending his hand just as he had in the service corridor of the Halston Hotel three days ago.
This time, the gesture wasn't an escape. It was an invitation into a war.
