Chapter 3 - The Ghost of the Past
The downtown offices of Feld & Associates smelled of old leather, stale peppermint tea, and paper that had survived half a century of Chicago politics. Aaron Feld sat behind his mahogany desk, spinning a silver fountain pen between his knuckles while he looked over the emergency financial injunctions I had triggered that morning.
"The shipping freeze is holding," Aaron said without looking up. "Moretti’s logistics network is losing roughly four hundred thousand dollars every six hours it stays locked. But Enzo isn't the kind of man to negotiate from a basement, Carmela. He’s going to come looking for the keys—literally and figuratively."
"Let him," I said, sitting across from him with a cup of black coffee between my hands. "He thinks this is about money or spite. He still doesn't understand that I’m dismantling the structure because his carelessness killed our child."
Aaron stopped spinning the pen and looked at me over his half-moon reading glasses. His eyes were soft with an old, paternal sadness.
"Your father knew Enzo was ambitious," Aaron murmured carefully. "When Dominic Romano agreed to your marriage, he thought ambition would keep you safe. He didn't realize ambition makes a man blind to what’s right in front of him."
"My father was wrong about a lot of things," I replied, looking out the frosted glass window at the gray Chicago skyline. "He thought loyalty could be bought with a blood oath. Enzo proved it can be discarded for a cheap imitation of domesticity with Bianca Rossi."
"Speaking of Mrs. Rossi," Aaron said, sliding a thin secondary folder across the desk. "When my investigator pulled the public records on her return to Chicago three months ago, we found a few interesting anomalies. Her divorce from her previous husband wasn't a tragedy, Carmela. It was an NDA settlement paid out by a shell company registered in the Cayman Islands."
I frowned, opening the folder. Inside were bank wire printouts and corporate registry filings.
"A shell company?" I asked.
"Controlled by Matteo Tatalia," Aaron said quietly. "Bianca didn't just happen to move back into Enzo’s neighborhood by coincidence. She was placed there. And Luca’s school enrollment? Funded by an educational trust managed by the same firm that represents the Tatalia family holdings."
The coffee cup in my hands suddenly felt heavy—freezing cold against my palms.
"Enzo thinks she’s just an old sweetheart who needs help," I breathed, the pieces clicking together with terrifying clarity. "He thinks he's being a noble protector by playing daddy to her kid."
"He’s being played," Aaron corrected. "And because he was too busy managing Bianca's manufactured crises, he missed the actual threat closing in on you. The hit on Route 41 wasn't a random mugging or a casual debt collection. It was designed to pull Enzo into a panic—or to take you out of the picture entirely before you realized how deeply compromised his inner circle is."
A cold spike of adrenaline shot through my chest. Not fear—clarity. Enzo wasn't just a cold, unfaithful husband who had abandoned me while I bled in the snow. He was a man walking straight into a trap, dragging his entire organization down with him because his ego refused to admit he had been manipulated by a ghost from his past.
My phone buzzed on the desk.
An incoming video call from an unrecognized, encrypted number.
I looked at Aaron. He nodded slowly and reached for his landline to trace the signal.
I pressed accept.
The screen flickered, revealing the dim, smoke-filled interior of a private backroom at a North Side social club. Matteo Tatalia sat in a leather armchair, swirling amber liquor in a heavy crystal glass. But standing just behind him, caught in the edge of the camera’s wide-angle lens, was Dante—Enzo’s most trusted head of security.
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"Good afternoon, Mrs. Moretti," Matteo said, smiling smoothly. "I hear you're in the market for a new legal team. Too bad your husband is a little busy right now trying to figure out why his bank accounts are empty while his security detail is busy working for the opposition."
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