Chapter 5 - The Velvet Cage
The morning light did not bring warmth to the Moretti estate; it brought a hard, gray clarity that showed every crack in the old stone walls.
Sophia stood by the high arched window of her bedroom, her blue satin dress from the night before still unchanged, though the hem was now wrinkled and stained with the gray ash of the fire she had tried to keep alive through the night. Her hair had tumbled down from its pins, falling in dark, tangled waves over her shoulders.
The door opened without a knock.
Aleandro walked in. He had changed into a fresh suit—dark charcoal, three-piece, the uniform of a man who was attending a funeral or a board meeting. He carried a silver tray with a single cup of black coffee and a small, glass saucer.
On the saucer sat the black recording device from beneath the table.
He set the tray on the small table by her bed, then sat down in the armchair across from her, crossing his legs with the slow, deliberate grace of an apex predator that knew the territory was completely secure.
"Drink your coffee, Sophia," he said. "It’s going to be a long day."
Sophia didn't look at the coffee. She looked at the recording device, her face turning the color of milk before she pulled her gaze back to his eyes. She didn't cry. She didn't beg. The Vance family, it seemed, had their own version of steel.
"Is Marco dead?" she asked, her voice hollow, stripped of the sweet, soft music she had used to lull him for three years.
"Marco has been relocated," Aleandro said. "He was always fond of the water. I imagine he’s very close to it now."
She closed her eyes for a brief second, her breath shuddering in her throat, before she squared her shoulders and looked down at him. "Then do it. Call your men. Put me in the basement. I knew what the risks were when I took the assignment."
"The assignment," Aleandro repeated the word, tasting it like an old, sour wine. "Your brother’s name is David, isn't it? The assistant district attorney who thought he could audit the Boston docks without paying the tax. I didn't put him in that chair, Sophia. Marco did. Marco wanted the Boston route for himself, so he cleared the prosecutor out of the way and blamed it on my father’s old guards to start a war."
Sophia froze, her hands tightening around the fabric of her skirt until her knuckles turned white. "You're lying. The files—"
"The files you’ve been copying for the last six months were curated by Marco," Aleandro said, leaning forward, his blue eyes turning into two pieces of sharpened flint. "He used your grief to turn you into a tool, Sophia. He wanted you to destroy me so he could take the seat, and then he was going to turn you over to the family council as the sacrificial lamb to prove his loyalty to the old men in Palermo. You weren't his partner. You were his exit strategy."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small micro-cassette tape—an old-fashioned recording from his father’s private safe—and dropped it onto the tray next to the coffee.
May you like
"Listen to it," Aleandro said, standing up and walking toward the door. "It’s Marco’s voice from 2021. The night your brother’s car went over the embankment. He was laughing, Sophia. He laughed just like the guests at our party."
He stopped at the threshold, his hand on the heavy brass handle. "The guards will remain outside the door. You have until sunset to decide if you want to be a Vance, or if you want to be a Moretti."
