Chapter 5
“Because my father died believing this Outfit was a brotherhood of men who protected their own neighborhoods,” he said softly, a trace of bitter poison lacing the words. “He died with a rosary in his hands, believing honor mattered. If I start slaughtering shopgirls because they stepped into the wrong alley to throw out the garbage, then there is no difference between me and Don Salieri. I become the animal they want me to be.”
He reached out. His knuckles—scarred from years of violence—lightly brushed the high curve of my cheekbone, wiping away a stray tear with shocking tenderness.
The touch was warm. Dangerously warm.
For a terrifying second, my operational detachment fractured. The analytical operative inside me—the woman who had broken through diplomatic firewalls in Berlin and survived black-bag interrogations in Vienna—felt a sudden, sharp ache in the center of her chest.
He wasn’t a monster keeping a plaything.
He was a warrior who still believed in ghosts, bleeding from a thousand cuts, desperately holding onto a moral line that his own world had abandoned decades ago.
“Bake your bread, cara,” Marco murmured, pulling his hand away as if burnt by his own gentleness. “I’ll be in the study.”
***
By Friday evening, the routine had deepened into an intimate domestic prison.
The estate had settled into an uneasy silence. Outside, the lake raged against the limestone bluffs, sending freezing spray against the lower windows. Inside, the grand library off the main foyer was lit by the amber glow of a roaring hearth.
Marco had begun taking his dinners with me.
At first, it had been a silent affair—he sat at the far end of the long mahogany dining table, reviewing encrypted logistics manifests on an offline tablet while I picked at Maria’s handmade tortellini. But tonight, I had carried a tray into the library myself, balancing two porcelain bowls of the minestrone I had helped prepare, alongside thick slices of warm, rosemary-scented focaccia.
Marco was seated in a leather armchair beside the fire, an unlit cigar between his teeth, a half-empty glass of Macallan resting on the side table. He wore no jacket, no tie; the top two buttons of his shirt were undone, exposing the dark hair at the base of his throat and the silver chain of a Saint Christopher medal.
When the heavy library door creaked open, his head snapped up, hand dropping by reflex toward his ribs.
I froze in the doorway, the porcelain bowls rattling against the tray in my hands. I gasped, taking a half-step backward as if I might drop the entire dinner onto the parquet floor.
When he saw it was me, the tension drained from his shoulders, replaced by an exhaustion so profound it made him look ten years older.
“Chiara,” he said, removing the cigar from his mouth and setting it in a crystal ashtray. “What are you doing? Maria is supposed to bring the food.”
“She... she has arthritis in her hip tonight,” I said, keeping my head down, my voice soft and timid as I walked slowly toward the hearth. “The rain makes it worse. I told her I could bring it. If... if you don’t want me here, I can leave it on the hall table.”
Marco looked at the steaming soup, then at me. His gaze traced the gentle drape of the dark blue woolen dress Maria had altered for me, the bare curve of my collarbones, the slight flush on my cheeks from the kitchen heat.
“Set it down,” he said quietly, gesturing toward the low coffee table between the armchairs. “Sit.”
I obeyed, placing the tray down with extreme care. I took the chair opposite him, perching on the edge of the leather cushion with my knees pressed tightly together, my hands clasped in my lap.
“Eat,” he ordered gently, picking up his spoon.
We ate in silence for several minutes, the crackle of pine logs the only sound competing with the storm outside.
I watched him through lowered lashes. He ate quickly, without ceremony, the habit of a soldier who never knew when the next alert would sound. Yet whenever he looked across the table at me, his gaze lingered, softening the harsh, angular cuts of his face.
“The bread is good,” he noted, breaking off a piece of the focaccia. “Where did you learn to bake like this?”
“My grandmother,” I lied smoothly, crafting a narrative of quiet Midwestern mediocrity. “She had a small house in Kenosha. She said when everything else in life is uncertain, flour and water will always do exactly what they’re supposed to do. They don’t lie to you.”
Marco let out a low, dry chuckle that rumbled in his chest. “She was a smart woman. In this city, everything lies to you. Especially the men who kiss your cheek and call you brother.”
I tilted my head, letting a flicker of genuine curiosity show through my timid facade.
“You talk about Don Salieri like you hate him,” I ventured, keeping my tone childlike, innocent of the lethal implications. “Isn’t he... isn’t he the one in charge?”
Marco leaned back, picking up his scotch. The amber liquid swirled against the crystal. The firelight caught the dark edge of his profile, painting him in sharp contrasts of gold and shadow.
“Don Salieri is a parasite,” Marco said, the words bitter, stripped of all loyalty. “He took over the Commission after my uncle was killed in eighty-nine. For thirty years, he’s sat in his fortified penthouse on Michigan Avenue, collecting twenty percent off every container moving through the railyards, taking kickbacks from the cartel, poisoning the South Side with fentanyl while telling the old families we’re maintaining order.”
He took a long sip of the whiskey, his eyes fixed on the flames.
“My father believed in omertà,” Marco continued, his voice tight with an ancient grief. “He believed that a man’s word was a blood contract. Today? Salieri sells his own lieutenants to federal prosecutors just to clear out rivals for his nephew. He wants a war with the Russian syndicates. He wants blood in the streets because chaos is profitable.”
He turned his gaze back to me, catching me staring at him.
“I’m keeping you here because if Salieri finds out you were behind Frankie’s floral drop, he won’t just kill you to silence a witness. He’ll execute you and use your body to claim I’m sloppy. He’ll use you as an excuse to bring down my entire crew.”
“And you?” I whispered, leaning forward slightly, drawn in by the raw, bleeding truth of his confession. “What do you want, Marco?”
It was the first time I had spoken his first name without the stuttering honorific.
The word hung in the warm air between us like an electric wire.
Marco’s glass paused halfway to the table. His eyes locked onto mine, burning with an intensity that dried the saliva in my mouth.
“I want this city clean,” he said, his voice dropping to a gravelly, intimate register that made my stomach flutter with an unexpected heat. “I want Salieri out. I want the Outfit back in the hands of men who don’t slaughter innocent people for pocket change. And I want...”
