Chapter 1 - The Bloody Lily
The heavy brass-trimmed oak doors of Bella Notte did not merely open; they shuddered under the violent force of the April gale howling off the Chicago River. For a fraction of a second, the comforting, rich aroma of white truffle risotto, dry-aged ribeye, and expensive tobacco was slashed by the raw, wet stench of petrichor and city grime.
The girl stood in the entryway, framed by the dark, rain-slicked street behind her.
She was incredibly small, perhaps seven years old, though the hollow gauntness of her cheeks made her look like an ancient, fragile thing carved from cheap soapstone. Her left foot was bare, the pale skin scraped raw and bleeding onto the polished marble threshold, while her right foot was clad in a single, mud-caked canvas sneaker with a broken lace. Her floral-print dress, once probably bright and cheerful, was torn at the shoulder, the wet fabric clinging to her collarbone like a cold shroud.
The restaurant, the undisputed crown jewel of my family’s territory, went dead silent.
At table four, a wealthy city councilman lowered his fork, his eyes darting toward the two armed guards standing near the coat check. At the bar, a prominent union boss stopped mid-sentence, his glass of expensive cognac hovering inches from his lips. Nobody spoke. Nobody breathed. In our world, an unexpected visitor at Bella Notte was either a delivery of cash or a declaration of war. A bleeding child was neither, which made her infinitely more terrifying.
She did not hesitate. Her eyes, vast and dark with a desperate, animal intelligence, scanned the dimly lit dining room before locking onto me.
I sat at the center table beneath the massive crystal chandelier, surrounded by my inner circle. To my right sat Luca Ferrari, my enforcer, a man whose silence was more lethal than most men's threats. To my left was my cousin, Enzo Ricci, his fingers idly tracing the rim of his wine glass. Directly across from me sat Dante Rizzo, my chief of logistics, a ledger open before him, his gold fountain pen poised above a column of numbers.
The girl walked straight toward us, her bare foot leaving a faint, smeary trail of crimson and gray mud on the Persian carpet.
She did not stop until she reached the side of my chair. Her small, cold, trembling fingers reached out and gripped the charcoal silk sleeve of my bespoke suit. The wetness of her hand soaked through the fabric instantly, a cold patch of reality against my arm.
"They're beating my mom," she whispered. Her voice did not rise to a cry; it cracked, a dry, brittle sound that seemed to sap the remaining warmth from the room. "She told me to find the man everyone is scared of. Please. She's dying."
Enzo’s eyes narrowed, his hand dropping beneath the table toward the holster tucked into his waistband. Luca remained perfectly still, his eyes scanning the windows behind the girl, looking for the shadow of an ambush. Dante slowly closed his ledger, the heavy leather cover shutting with a soft, final thud.
I looked down at her hand on my sleeve. There was a tiny tear in the cuff of her floral dress, and her fingernails were caked with black dirt and dried blood.
"What is your name?" I asked. My voice was quiet, devoid of the harsh, commanding edge I used to direct an empire that stretched from the docks of Lake Michigan to the high-rise boardrooms of the Loop.
"Emma," she whispered, her lower lip trembling violently as a drop of rain mixed with soot fell from her dark hair and rolled down her pale nose. "Emma Bennett."
I pushed my chair back. The heavy mahogany legs scraped against the floor, a sound that made every man in the room shift their weight. They expected me to call for the manager. They expected me to have her escorted out the back door, perhaps handed over to a corrupt precinct captain who would bury the inconvenience in a suburban shelter.
Instead, I lowered myself onto one knee.
The movement was slow, deliberate, and entirely uncharacteristic of a man who had spent the last decade ensuring that everyone else bent their knees to him. My trousers, cut from three-thousand-dollar Italian wool, touched the dirty, damp carpet.
"Emma," I said, looking directly into her eyes. Up close, I could see tiny flecks of glass dust glittering in her dark hair, and a thin, jagged cut crossed her lower lip. "Where is your mother?"
"Sophia's Bloom," she whispered, her hand tightening on my sleeve as if she were holding onto the edge of a cliff. "On Wells. Near Grand."
I knew the shop. It was a tiny, unassuming florist nestled between a high-end boutique and a dry cleaner. I had driven past it a hundred times, its small bay window filled with colorful seasonal displays. It was a peaceful place, a fragment of quiet beauty in a neighborhood dominated by concrete and iron.
"Who hurt her?" I asked, my voice dropping even lower.
"Three men," she said, her chest hitching with a silent, ragged sob. "One had a black snake on his neck. They said she owed money to Mr. Moretti."
My name.
The name of my family, the name that guaranteed safe passage through every dark alley and luxury hotel in this city, had been used to drag a woman across her own floor while her daughter ran seventeen blocks through a freezing spring storm to find me.
Behind me, Dante’s thumb stopped moving over the leather corner of his closed ledger.
It was a tiny detail. A minor pause. But in my line of work, the men who survive are the ones who notice when the music changes by a single note. I did not turn around to look at Dante. I kept my eyes on Emma.
"Luca," I said, standing up. The transition was seamless, the brief moment of humanity vanishing behind the cold, iron mask of the Moretti patriarch.
"Boss," Luca replied, already on his feet, his hand checking the action of his suppressed automatic beneath his coat.
"Take the SUV. We're going to Wells." I turned my gaze slowly to Dante, whose face remained a mask of polite, professional concern. "Dante, leave the ledger here. You're coming with us."
May you like
Dante's eyes flickered, the gold tip of his fountain pen catching the chandelier light for a fraction of a second before he tucked it into his breast pocket. "Of course, Leo. But shouldn't I stay and secure the receipts for the docks?"
"The docks can wait," I said, my voice as cold as the rain outside. "My name cannot."
