Chapter 7 - THE SISTER AND THE ULTIMATUM
The heater in the sedan was blasting at maximum, but I felt as though I had been plunged into an ice bath.
Emily.
My twenty-year-old sister. The brilliant, fiery girl I had spent my entire adult life protecting and supporting. The reason I was scrubbing floors in a mafia mansion in the first place.
“If you touch her,” I whispered, my voice shaking so badly it barely registered over the speakerphone. “If you hurt one hair on her head, I will kill you myself.”
Viktor Volkov laughed. It wasn't a menacing chuckle; it was a genuine, dismissive laugh of a man who found a mouse threatening a lion amusing.
“You are a fierce little maid, aren't you?” Viktor mocked smoothly. “But threats from domestic staff bore me. Luca. Are you listening?”
“I’m listening,” Luca snarled, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly the leather creaked.
“Dominic failed to secure the bearer bonds. It seems Vanessa’s purse took a swim,” Viktor said. “Without those bonds, I cannot purchase the loyalty of your captains. Which means this war will be bloody, drawn out, and expensive.”
“You won't win a ground war in Chicago, Viktor,” Luca stated coldly.
“Perhaps not. But I will certainly burn it to the ground trying,” Viktor replied. “Unless we come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
“I don't negotiate with men who kidnap children,” Luca spat.
“She’s twenty years old, Luca. Hardly a child,” Viktor countered. “And you will negotiate, because you are a man of honor. You protect your people. This girl is your employee. She saved your son tonight. You owe her a debt.”
Viktor was playing him flawlessly. He knew Luca’s reputation. Luca Moretti was ruthless to his enemies, but fiercely, almost pathologically loyal to anyone under his protection.
“What do you want?” Luca demanded.
“The shipping ports,” Viktor said instantly. “Sign over exclusive, unrestricted access to the South Side commercial ports to my front companies. In perpetuity. I want it ironclad, notarized by your syndicate lawyers by 6:00 AM tomorrow.”
Nico gasped in the passenger seat. “Dad, no. If you give them the ports, they control all the import traffic in the Midwest. They’ll bring in weapons, drugs... the FBI will tear the city apart.”
“If I don't give them the ports, they kill Emily,” Luca said quietly to his son, his dark eyes fixed on the dashboard.
“The boy is smart,” Viktor chuckled through the phone. “But he is not the boss. The paperwork, Luca. Bring it to the abandoned rail yard on 35th Street at dawn. Come alone. Hand over the ports, and you get the sister. Try to ambush me, and I will mail her back to the housekeeper in pieces.”
The line went dead.
The dial tone echoed in the car, sounding like a death knell.
I slumped back against the leather seat, covering my face with my hands, a ragged sob tearing from my throat. It was all my fault. If I hadn't interfered at the dinner, if I hadn't hit Dominic with the crowbar, Emily would still be safe in her dorm room.
“I’m sorry,” I wept, unable to stop the tears. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Moretti. I brought them to her.”
“Stop,” Luca said firmly, turning around in his seat to look at me. His eyes were intense, burning with a reassuring fire. “You didn't bring them to her, Claire. Dominic investigated you when he realized you were helping Nico. This is on me. I failed to protect my staff.”
“Dad, you can't sign over the ports,” Nico argued, his voice laced with panic. “The other captains will revolt. They’ll see it as weakness. They’ll challenge your leadership, and we’ll have a civil war on our hands.”
“I know,” Luca said grimly.
“Then we go to the rail yard and we fight,” Nico insisted, gripping the pistol in his lap.
“We have no army, Nico!” Luca shouted, the frustration finally breaking through his calm facade. “Marco is dead! Dominic slaughtered half my security detail at the estate, and the remaining men are scattered, unsure of who is in charge! It’s just the three of us against the entire Russian syndicate!”
The devastating reality slammed into the car. They were completely isolated. A king without a kingdom.
“Then I’ll go,” I said, my voice eerily calm as I wiped the tears from my face.
Luca and Nico both turned to stare at me.
“What are you talking about?” Luca frowned.
“Viktor wants the ports, but he expects you to bring the paperwork,” I said rapidly, my mind working through the sheer terror. “If you don't show up, he kills Emily. But if I show up... I’m the leverage. He knows you value loyalty. He knows you won't let me die.”
“Absolutely not,” Luca rejected the idea instantly. “You are a civilian. I am not sending you into a cartel kill box.”
“You don't have a choice!” I fired back, leaning forward over the center console, my eyes locked on his. “You need time to rally your captains! You need time to prove you’re still alive and in command! If I walk into that rail yard at dawn, I can buy you that time.”
“Claire, they will torture you,” Nico whispered, horrified.
“I don't care!” I shouted, a fierce, maternal protectiveness overriding every ounce of fear in my body. “She is my sister! I have protected her since our parents died! I am not letting some Russian monster take her from me because of a shipping port!”
Luca stared at me. He saw the fire in my eyes, the absolute, unyielding determination of a woman who had nothing left to lose. He recognized it because he saw the exact same fire in the mirror every day.
“You’re out of your mind,” Luca murmured softly.
“I’m motivated,” I corrected.
Luca looked at the dashboard clock. It was 3:00 AM. They had three hours until dawn.
“Okay,” Luca said, his jaw tightening with a terrifying resolve. “We do this your way, Claire. But you are not walking in there as a sacrifice. You are walking in as bait.”
He turned to Nico.
“Nico. I need you to do exactly what you were trying to do before Dominic ambushed you in the warehouse,” Luca ordered.
Nico frowned. “Call the police?”
“No,” Luca smirked darkly. “You’re going to call the captains. All five of them. You are going to tell them that I am alive, that Dominic Bellini is dead, and that the Russian syndicate just declared war on the Moretti family by kidnapping one of our own.”
“They won't believe me,” Nico argued. “They think I’m a kid who ran away to the Navy.”
“They will believe you when you tell them where to meet us,” Luca said confidently.
“Where?”
Luca looked out the rain-streaked window toward the dark, churning waters of Lake Michigan.
“The Cathedral of St. Jude,” Luca stated. “It’s neutral ground. It’s where the syndicate was founded.”
He turned back to me, his dark eyes intense.
“Claire, I need you to stall Viktor Volkov for exactly fifteen minutes at dawn,” Luca instructed, his voice low and serious. “Can you do that?”
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“I can do that,” I lied bravely, my hands shaking.
“Good. Because when those fifteen minutes are up,” Luca promised, a lethal, terrifying smile touching his lips. “I am going to bring the wrath of God down on that rail yard.”
