Dominic Moretti did not panic. Panic was a luxury reserved for the dead and the incompetent. Instead, his presence shifted, the ambient temperature of the room dropping as the undisputed patriarch of New York’s underworld absorbed the revelation. A poisoned cake. A secured perimeter. An insider.
“Lock the estate,” Dominic’s voice cut through the silence, a low, gravelly vibration that commanded absolute obedience. He didn’t shout. He didn’t need to. “No one leaves. No vehicles move through the gates. Seal the perimeter from the East Wing to the harbor docks. If a sparrow flies over the wall without a clearance code, drop it.”
Head of Security Marcus Vance stepped forward, his face drained of color, sweat beading along his hairline despite the climate-controlled air. “Boss, the service corridor access logs are encrypted. Only three people have master biometric overrides: myself, Chief Butler Alistair, and—” Marcus hesitated, his eyes darting toward the shadows.
“And my brother, Julian,” Dominic finished, his gaze narrowing into two razor-blades.
Sophia pulled little Lily tighter against her chest, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She had only attended the gala as a low-level catering coordinator’s assistant, a desperate attempt to pay off her mother’s medical debts. She had never imagined her three-year-old daughter would interject herself into a mafia execution plot.
“Mr. Moretti,” Sophia’s voice trembled, yet she forced herself to stand, shielding Lily. “My daughter… she didn’t mean to cause a scene. She just—she saw something.”
Dominic turned his formidable frame toward Sophia. For a second, the mafia boss looked down at the woman who had dared disrupt his son’s birthday, then down at the toddler who had just saved Ethan’s life. A flicker of cold calculation crossed his dark eyes.
“Your daughter saved my son’s life, Mrs. Miller,” Dominic said slowly, stepping closer until Sophia could smell the expensive sandalwood and raw danger radiating from him. “In my world, debts are paid in full. But right now, you and your daughter are material witnesses to a high-treason security failure inside my home. That makes you guests of the Moretti family—whether you like it or not.”
He turned back to Marcus. “Bring me the service hallway footage from the last four hours. And bring me my brother.”
A soft knock rapped against the door.
“Enter,” Julian purred, not turning around.
The heavy oak door creaked open, and Marcus Vance slipped inside, locking it behind him. The head of security looked haggard, his posture rigid.
“It failed,” Marcus whispered, his voice tight. “The girl—Sophia Miller’s kid—knocked the plate off the table before Ethan took a bite. Dominic is currently locking down the entire compound. He’s reviewing the service corridor logs right now.”
Julian finally turned, a chilling, sardonic smile playing on his thin lips. He picked up a crystal tumbler of amber scotch, swirling the liquid lazily. “A three-year-old. Who would have predicted that the most sophisticated security apparatus on the East Coast would be defeated by a toddler with an affinity for ruining desserts?”
“Julian, if Dominic traces those biometric overrides back to your secondary terminal—”
“He won’t,” Julian interrupted, his eyes flashing with sudden, manic brilliance. “Because the logs were wiped, Marcus. You made sure of that, didn’t you? Or are you planning on weeping for Dominic when he finds out his own flesh and blood orchestrated the coup?”
Marcus swallowed hard. He was trapped, bound to Julian by a web of blackmail and old debts that went back a decade. “What do we do now? Dominic is tearing the mansion apart. He knows there’s an insider.”
“We let him hunt,” Julian said softly, taking a slow sip of his scotch. “Let him suspect the guards. Let him interrogate the kitchen staff. By the time he realizes the rot is sitting right here in the family, it will be too late. The Syndicate council meets at midnight. With Ethan dead, Dominic’s bloodline ends, and the crown falls to his grieving, fragile uncle.”
Julian set his glass down with a sharp clink. “Go down there, Marcus. Play the loyal soldier. And make sure the poison chemist in the basement stays quiet—permanently.”
Ethan sat in a leather armchair in the adjacent security monitoring office, clutching a glass of water, his wide eyes fixed on his father. Dominic stood over the stainless-steel table where a sample of the shattered birthday cake frosting had been placed under a high-powered laboratory microscope.
Dr. Aris Vance, the estate’s resident physician and forensic toxicologist, straightened up, his face grim.
“Well, Dominic?” Dominic asked, his voice dead flat.
“It’s not just arsenic, or cyanide,” Aris said, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses. “It’s a synthesized neurotoxin. Fast-acting. Paralyzes the respiratory system within ninety seconds, leaves no trace in standard autopsies. It mimics a sudden, catastrophic pediatric heart failure. Whoever made this had access to high-end biochemical labs. This wasn’t bought off the street.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened until the bone threatened to fracture the skin. “A professional hit. Someone inside my inner circle wanted my eight-year-old boy dead without leaving a single fingerprint of suspicion.”
Sophia stood nearby in the corner of the room, holding Lily tightly. She had been brought down along with the other catering staff for questioning. She watched the mafia boss, realizing with a chill that she was standing at the epicenter of a war zone.
“You,” Dominic muttered, turning his heavy gaze toward Sophia.
Sophia flinched, pulling Lily behind her skirt. “I… I told you, we just caterers. We didn’t see anything—”
“You saw the man,” Dominic interrupted, stepping closer. His presence was overwhelming, a tidal wave of dark charisma and intimidation. “Lily said a man put white stuff in Ethan’s frosting. Lily, sweetheart,” Dominic knelt down, his terrifying demeanor softening just enough for the child not to burst into tears. “Can you tell me what the man looked like? Did he have a uniform on?”
Lily peeked out from behind Sophia’s leg, her big eyes blinking up at the feared criminal. She pointed a tiny, trembling finger toward the security monitors displaying the hallway feeds.
“He had… a shiny badge,” Lily whispered. “And a funny mark on his hand. Like a burned spider.”
Dominic froze.
Every muscle in his body went rigid. A burned spider tattoo on the hand. There was only one man in the entire Moretti compound who bore that exact, hidden mark—a remnant of a blood oath sworn in the Sicilian underground twenty years ago.
Julian’s personal shadow.
“Marcus,” Dominic called out without turning around.
The head of security stepped forward from the shadows of the doorway. “Yes, Boss?”
“Where is my brother?”
Marcus blinked, a micro-second hesitation betraying his nerves. “Mr. Julian? He… he was upstairs in the family wing checking on the guest registries, Boss. Shall I call him down?”
Dominic slowly turned around, his gaze locking onto Marcus with an intensity that made the veteran guard’s blood run cold. “No. Don’t call him. You and I are going to go pay him a visit. Together.”
