Chapter 4 - The Iron Cage
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Sophie said firmly, stepping back toward the main dining floor.
Gino stepped into her path, his broad shoulders completely blocking the exit toward the kitchen.
“I have a shift to finish,” Sophie said, turning her head to glare at Dominic. “I helped your baby because he was in pain, Mr. Moretti. I am not part of your world, and I do not work for you.”
Dominic didn't raise his voice. He didn't make a scene. He pulled a thick, hand-tailored leather checkbook from his inner jacket pocket, pulled out a gold pen, and wrote a figure on a blank slip.
He tore the check off and laid it flat on the table.
Mr. Halpern, who had crept closer out of morbid curiosity, caught sight of the numbers written on the paper. His eyes nearly popped out of his skull. It was a check for fifty thousand dollars, written out to Bellavita Restaurant.
“Mr. Halpern,” Dominic said, not even looking at the manager. “Miss Lane is resigning tonight. Effective immediately. If anyone asks where she went, you tell them she moved out of state.”
“Yes, Mr. Moretti! Absolutely! Of course!” Halpern babbled, grabbing the check as if it were a holy relic. “Sophie, go! Go with the gentleman! Take your coat!”
Sophie stared at her manager in utter disgust. “You’re selling me out for fifty thousand dollars?”
“It’s a tip!” Halpern squeaked, ducking behind a server station.
Dominic stepped beside her, his hand lightly touching the small of her back—not forcefully, but with an unmistakable authority that left no room for debate.
“I have twenty guards surrounding this block, Miss Lane,” Dominic murmured in her ear, his breath warm against her skin. “My son is three days old. He has an unmanaged cardiac arrhythmia, his mother is in a mahogany coffin, and you are the only person on this planet who knows how to keep him alive right now. You can come willingly in my car, or my men can carry you. Either way, you are coming to my house.”
Sophie looked down at the sleeping baby in her arms. Nico’s tiny hand had reached out in his sleep, his little fingers latching tightly onto the strap of her server apron.
She let out a heavy, defeated breath. “If you touch me, or if your men make one threatening gesture toward me, I walk out the door and I call the State Medical Board and the police.”
Dominic offered a grim, faint shadow of a smile. “Fair enough. Gino, bring her bag.”
Ten minutes later, Sophie was sitting in the plush leather backseat of a bulletproof, black SUV crawling through the rain-slicked streets of downtown Chicago.
Nico lay asleep on her lap, wrapped in his heavy silk blanket. Dominic sat across from her on the facing bench seat, a glass of crystal tumbler scotch in his hand, watching her with an intensity that made her skin prickle.
The SUV turned off the main highway, passing through a massive, reinforced iron gate topped with security cameras and armed guards, entering the private, secluded estate grounds of the Moretti compound in Riverwoods.
The house was a sprawling, stone fortress surrounded by dense oak forests. But as the car pulled up to the grand front entrance, Sophie noticed something wrong instantly.
Three dark sedans were parked near the fountain, their engines idling in the rain.
The front doors of the estate were wide open, and the sound of shouting echo-chambered out into the wet night air.
May you like
Gino’s radio crackled to life with panicked static: “Boss! It’s your brother! Vincent brought the syndicate council! They’re inside the study—they’re claiming the boy is unfit to inherit!”
Dominic’s face went instantly dark as night.
