Chapter 7 - THE LION'S DEN
The silence in the car was suffocating.
Carlo’s voice on the speakerphone sounded warm, paternal, and completely drenched in false concern.
Leo stared at the ledger in his lap. The proof of his wife’s murder. The proof of Thomas Mercer’s murder. All funded by the man currently offering him sanctuary.
Leo leaned forward, his voice perfectly even.
“I’m on my way, Carlo. Just me, Rocco, and Lily. We’re ten minutes out.”
“Good boy,” Carlo said. “We’ll keep you safe.”
The line went dead.
Blair turned around in her seat, staring at Leo like he had lost his mind.
“Are you crazy?” she hissed. “He’s the one who ordered the hits! He wants the ledger to destroy the evidence!”
“I know,” Leo said softly. He looked at Rocco. “Pull over.”
Rocco pulled the sedan into a dark, abandoned industrial lot under an overpass.
Leo gently lifted Lily off his lap and set her on the seat. “Lily, sweetie, I need you to stay with Blair for a little bit. Daddy has to go talk to Grandpa Carlo.”
“No,” Lily whimpered, grabbing his sleeve. “I want you to stay.”
Leo kissed her forehead, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “I will always come back to you. I promise.”
He looked at Blair.
“Take the car. Take Lily. Drive to the safe deposit box I set up under an alias—the key is in the glove box. There’s enough cash inside to disappear. If I don’t call you by sunrise, you take her and run.”
Blair shook her head, her heart pounding. “You’re walking into a suicide mission. Carlo has an army at that estate. You and a wounded Rocco can’t fight them all.”
“I’m not going to fight them,” Leo said, his voice turning cold. Lethal. “I’m going to present the ledger to the Commission. The heads of the Five Families are staying at Carlo’s estate tonight for the quarterly meeting. If I can get into that boardroom and show them this page, Carlo’s own men will execute him for breaking the syndicate's blood laws.”
“And if he stops you before you reach the boardroom?” Blair asked.
“Then I die,” Leo said simply.
He handed her the car keys.
But Blair didn’t take them.
She looked at Leo. She looked at Lily. She thought about her father, bleeding out in an alley in Frankfurt because he tried to do the right thing.
“No,” Blair said, her voice finding a sudden, iron strength.
Leo frowned. “Blair, this isn’t a debate—”
“Klaus’s men saw a waitress tonight,” Blair interrupted, the plan forming rapidly in her mind. “Carlo’s men are looking for you and Rocco. But Carlo doesn’t know I exist. He doesn’t know who I am.”
Leo stared at her. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I can get the ledger into that boardroom,” Blair said. “I’ll walk right through the front door.”
“They have guards. They won't let a stranger in.”
“They will if she’s delivering a catering order,” Blair said, gesturing to her black uniform pants and white button-down shirt. “I look like private staff. I’ll walk into the kitchen, bypass the outer security, and slip the ledger onto the boardroom table before Carlo even knows I’m in the house.”
Rocco let out a low whistle from the front seat. “She’s got brass ones, Boss. And she’s right. The catering crew for the Commission meeting is arriving right now. I saw the schedule.”
Leo looked at Blair. The terror of risking her warred with the absolute necessity of her plan.
“If you get caught,” Leo said, his voice thick with emotion, “they won't just kill you. They’ll make it hurt.”
“My father worked for you because he believed you were a good man,” Blair said softly. “Let me finish his job.”
Ten minutes later, the grey sedan idled a block away from Carlo’s sprawling, gated estate.
Blair stood in the rain, the heavy ledger tucked tightly against her stomach, secured under her white serving shirt. She had tied her hair back in a tight bun.
Leo stepped out of the car. He reached out and gently cupped her face. His thumb brushed over her cheekbone.
“Five minutes,” Leo whispered. “You drop the book on the table, and you walk straight out the back door. Rocco and I will be waiting by the east wall.”
“Five minutes,” Blair echoed.
She turned and walked toward the gates.
Three massive catering trucks were parked in the driveway, staff rushing back and forth carrying trays of food and crystal glasses.
Blair kept her head down, grabbed an empty silver serving tray from the back of a truck, and walked straight past the armed guards at the gate.
They didn't even look at her.
She moved through the bustling kitchen of the mansion. The head chef was screaming in Italian. Waiters were rushing past.
Blair slipped through the swinging doors into the main hallway.
The house was breathtakingly opulent, but the air was heavy with tension. Men with holstered weapons stood at every corner.
Blair spotted the heavy mahogany double doors at the end of the hall. The boardroom.
Two guards stood outside.
She took a deep breath, balanced the silver tray on her hand, and walked confidently toward them.
“Fresh water for the table,” Blair said, keeping her voice entirely flat and bored.
The guards glanced at her tray, then at her uniform. One of them grunted and pushed the heavy door open.
Blair stepped inside.
The room was filled with cigar smoke. Five incredibly powerful men sat around a massive table.
At the head of the table sat Don Carlo.
He looked exactly like the grandfather everyone wished they had. White hair, warm smile, sipping an espresso.
He was mid-sentence. “…Leo’s tragedy tonight is a blow to us all. I fear the Germans have broken our truce.”
Blair walked to the center of the table.
She set the water pitcher down.
Then, in one fluid motion, she unbuttoned the bottom of her shirt, pulled out the heavy leather ledger, and dropped it directly onto the polished wood in front of the Commission heads.
The room went dead silent.
Don Carlo stopped smiling.
Blair looked directly at him.
“Thomas Mercer’s ledger,” she announced clearly. “Showing Don Carlo’s payments to Klaus for the assassination of Leo Castiglione’s wife.”
Carlo’s face drained of color.
Before anyone could move, the boardroom doors crashed open.
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Leo walked in, a gun in each hand, Rocco limping behind him with an assault rifle.
“Meeting adjourned,” Leo said.
