Part 2: The Midnight Contract
The heavy doors swung open with a slow, deliberate click.
Vincent Caruso stepped into the room, flanked by four of his own personal enforcers.
He looked exactly like he had at the reception—impeccably tailored, silver-haired, and entirely devoid of fear.
He held a golden master key card between his manicured fingers, tapping it against his palm.
— Dante, Vincent said smoothly, his eyes sliding right past me to lock onto Alara. I see you haven't properly unwrapped your wedding present yet.
Alara let out a sharp, strangled gasp and ducked behind my shoulder.
My two bodyguards immediately reached inside their jackets, their hands resting on the grips of their suppressed firearms.
The air in the suite turned to liquid nitrogen.
— You are in my city, in my hotel, standing in front of my wife, I said, my voice dangerously calm. Give me one reason why your head shouldn't hit this marble before you can take another breath.
Vincent laughed, a dry, aristocratic sound that echoed off the high ceilings.
— Your wife? Dante, please. Victor Voss owed my family forty million dollars before he ever offered her to you.
He took a step closer, his eyes narrowing with a sickening sense of ownership.
— She belongs to the Caruso syndicate. Her father merely leased her to you to keep my collection agencies off his back for another fiscal quarter. Those marks on her neck? A reminder of what happens when a Voss forgets their debts.
The puzzle pieces snapped together with terrifying clarity.
Victor Voss hadn't sold his daughter to me to secure a merger.
He had used me as a shield to protect his own skin from the man he truly feared.
And Vincent Caruso thought he could walk into my sanctuary and claim what was legally and traditionally mine.
— The Moretti family does not share assets, Vincent, I said, stepping directly into his line of sight, completely blocking Alara from his view.
— Then buy her out, Dante, Vincent sneered, his civilized mask finally slipping to reveal the ruthless wolf beneath. Give me the Joliet warehousing routes, and I’ll let you keep the broken little bird. Otherwise, this war gets very expensive for both of us.
I looked at him for three long seconds.
I didn't argue. I didn't threaten.
I simply turned my head slightly toward my chief of security, Romano.
— Romano, I said quietly.
— Yes, Boss?
— Cancel the shipping contracts with Victor Voss. Take his warehouses by force.
Vincent’s eyes widened slightly, his arrogance faltering for the first time.
— And as for Mr. Caruso? I continued, looking back at the silver-haired mogul.
I smiled, a expression that had signaled the end of entire regimes in the Chicago underworld.
May you like
— Tell the street crews that the truce is officially over. We are hunting wolves tonight.
Before Vincent could order his men to draw their weapons, Romano’s suppressed pistol flared twice in the dim light of the foyer.
