Chapter 3 - The Safehouse on the Lake
Snow had begun to fall over Chicago, dusting the dark waters of Lake Michigan in soft white flakes.
A black sedan with no license plates sat idling in a dark alley three blocks from Emma’s apartment building. When Emma stumbled out of the shadow of an adjacent building, her clothes wet with melted snow and her hands numb from the cold, the passenger door swung open.
"Get in!" a voice commanded.
Emma didn't hesitate. She threw herself into the heated leather interior, slamming the door shut.
Sitting in the driver’s seat was an elderly man with thick white hair, wearing a dark wool overcoat. His eyes were sharp, dark, and filled with a calm authority that immediately put her at ease.
"Leo?" she gasped, clutching her bag against her chest.
"Hold on," Leo said smoothly, shifting the car into drive and accelerating out of the alley just as two police cruisers with flashing red lights sped past the main street toward her apartment building.
Leo navigated the slick streets with effortless expertise, avoiding the main avenues and steering the sedan north along the lower level of Wacker Drive.
"Where are you taking me?" Emma asked, her teeth chattering from the cold.
"To a place where neither the police nor Vanessa Moretti can touch you," Leo replied, looking at her through the rearview mirror. "Mrs. Romano is waiting."
Twenty minutes later, the sedan pulled into the underground garage of a grand, historic limestone mansion in Gold Coast. The heavy iron gates closed behind them with a deep, echoing thud.
Leo escorted Emma up a private service elevator that opened directly into a vast, firelit library. The room smelled of old paper, leather, and fresh lavender.
Sitting in a high-backed armchair near the stone fireplace was Evelyn Romano. She looked pale, her strand of pearls resting against her chest, but her gaze was sharp as she watched Emma enter.
"Thank God," Evelyn murmured, rising from her chair. She walked over to Emma, taking the young woman's cold, wet hands into her own warm ones. "You're safe, sweetheart."
"Mrs. Romano..." Emma began, her eyes stinging with fresh tears. "They broke into my apartment. The police..."
"They aren't real police, child," Evelyn said coldly. "They are officers paid by Joseph Moretti. My daughter-in-law’s family has been trying to bleed the Romano family dry from the inside for three years. They used Lucas's affection for Vanessa to plant her right in our home."
Emma took a shuddering breath. "Why did she want to poison you?"
Evelyn's eyes flashed with a dark, ancient sorrow. "Because under my late husband’s will, I hold fifty-one percent of the voting shares in Romano Enterprises. If I die, my shares are divided equally between Dante and Lucas. And with Lucas completely under Vanessa’s thumb, Moretti would have taken control of the entire enterprise by morning."
The library door swung open.
Dante Romano walked into the room. He had removed his suit jacket, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing dark tattoos of old Italian scripture wrapping around his muscles. He stopped dead when he saw Emma standing by the fire.
"What is she doing here, Ma?" Dante demanded, his voice low and dangerous.
"She is here because I brought her here, Dante," Evelyn said firmly. "And because she saved my life tonight."
Dante looked at Emma, then at his mother. His gray eyes softened by a fraction of a degree, but the tension in his jaw remained taut.
"Lucas is in the ICU at Saint Anthony’s," Dante said, his voice thick with repressed rage. "The doctors found traces of aconite in his system—monkshood poison. If he had eaten the entire dessert, he’d be dead. As it is, he’s on a ventilator."
Dante walked up to Emma, stopping inches from her. He looked down at her small frame, noting the wet snow in her hair and the bruises on her wrist from her frantic escape down the fire escape.
"You switched the plates," Dante said, his voice dropping into a quiet, intense whisper. "You knew what was on that plate."
"I saw her," Emma said, standing her ground, looking straight into his dark gray eyes. "I saw Vanessa drop something from a silver vial onto the plate marked with an 'E.' I couldn't stop her without creating a scene, so I exchanged it with an unmarked plate. I didn't know your brother would eat it."
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Dante stared at her for a long moment. He reached out, his large, warm fingers gently brushing a strand of wet hair away from her cheek.
"You saved my mother," Dante said quietly, the coldness in his voice vanishing, replaced by a deep, profound solemnity. "And you nearly died for it tonight."
