THE SILK CONFESSION

Dinner that night was flawless. We went to a quiet, upscale Italian restaurant downtown where the owner treated Antonio like royalty—not out of fear, but out of genuine respect for the man he was becoming.

When we returned to the estate, the house was quiet. Dominic had taken Leo to a baseball game, leaving the mansion peacefully empty.

Antonio poured us two glasses of red wine in the study. The ruined painting of Lucia had been removed, replaced by a beautiful landscape of the Italian coast.

“To new beginnings,” Antonio said, raising his glass.

“To new beginnings,” I echoed, the crystal clinking softly.

We sat on the leather sofa. For a while, we just talked. We talked about Leo’s schooling, about my late husband, about Antonio’s hopes for the legitimate business. It was easy. Natural.

But as the clock struck midnight, the heavy oak door of the study swung open.

Standing in the doorway was Dominic.

He looked disheveled. His linen shirt was wrinkled, and there was a dark smudge of dirt on his cheek.

Antonio stood up immediately. “Dominic? Where’s Leo?”

“He’s upstairs. Fast asleep,” Dominic said, his breathing slightly heavy. He closed the study door behind him and locked it.

I set my wine glass down, my instincts instantly flaring. “What happened?”

Dominic walked over to the desk. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a thick, manila envelope, tossing it onto the leather blotter.

“I didn’t take Leo to the game,” Dominic confessed, looking at Antonio apologetically. “I took him to a movie. And while he was in the theater with my security detail, I met with an old associate of my father’s.”

Antonio frowned, walking over to the desk. “I told you, Dominic, we are out of that life.”

“We are,” Dominic agreed. “But Michael wasn’t.”

Dominic opened the envelope. He dumped a pile of glossy photographs onto the desk.

Antonio stared at them. I walked over and looked over his shoulder.

They were surveillance photos. They showed Michael meeting with several men in dark suits at a warehouse. But these weren’t Michael’s men.

“That’s the Romano family,” Antonio said, his voice turning cold. “They run the East Coast ports.”

“Michael wasn’t just trying to take over your territory, Uncle Antonio,” Dominic said grimly. “He was selling it. He promised the Romanos access to all your shipping lines in exchange for their help in smuggling Leo to Italy. He financed the entire coup using their money.”

“Michael is in federal prison,” Antonio said. “The deal is dead.”

“The deal is dead,” Dominic agreed. “But the Romanos’ money is gone. Michael seized their funds and lost it when his accounts were frozen by the Feds. Now, the Romanos want their investment back.”

Dominic tapped the most recent photograph. It showed a black SUV parked across the street from Leo’s elementary school.

“They were watching the school today,” Dominic said. “They know about the boy. They know he’s your weakness. They want fifty million dollars by Friday, or they’re coming for him.”

The warm, peaceful bubble we had lived in for six months shattered in an instant.

I felt the blood drain from my face. “Fifty million? Can you pay it?”

“I could,” Antonio said, his jaw locked tight. “But if I pay them, it shows weakness. It shows them they can extort me whenever they want. They’ll never stop.”

“So what do we do?” I asked.

Antonio looked at the photograph of the black SUV.

“We do what a Moretti has always done,” Antonio said softly, the old, terrifying edge returning to his voice. “We protect our own.”

He looked at Dominic. “Get the men. All of them. Lock down the estate.”