Chapter 2 - The Inner Sanctum
The town car didn't take us back to Il Canto. Instead, we headed north, cutting away from the glittering downtown skyline and toward the quieter, historic neighborhoods near Lincoln Park. We pulled through a pair of heavy wrought-iron gates that slid open automatically, revealing a stately, limestone-faced brownstone that looked more like an European embassy than a mob boss's fortress.
Inside, the house was silent, smelling faintly of aged leather, burning cedar, and strong espresso.
The lieutenant led me down a wide hallway lined with oil paintings into a sunlit conservatory at the back of the house. Gabriel Costello sat at a mahogany desk that looked heavy enough to anchor a ship. He wasn't wearing his suit jacket today; his white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, his sleeves rolled up to reveal thick, muscular forearms corded with faint old scars.
Beatrice sat in a comfortable velvet armchair near the tall bay windows, knitting a soft gray scarf. When she saw me enter, her face lit up with a warm, wrinkled smile. Her hands immediately flew into a greeting.
Good morning, Chloe. I told my son you would come.
I felt a slight release of tension in my chest and signed back quickly. Good morning, Beatrice. You look well.
Gabriel watched our silent exchange with an expression that was difficult to read—part curiosity, part deep, unresolved guilt. He didn't interrupt until our hands stopped moving.
"Sit down, Chloe," Gabriel said, gesturing to the leather chair opposite his desk. His voice was low, gravelly, and commanding, yet noticeably less hostile than it had been in the restaurant kitchen.
I remained standing. "I have class tonight, Mr. Costello, and I need to know why I'm here. If this is about last night—"
"Last night is exactly why you're here," Gabriel interrupted, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the desk. "Silvio is gone. The men who backed him have been dealt with. But Silvio didn't act alone, and he didn't buy that poison at a local pharmacy."
My breath hitched. "You think there's someone else."
"I know there is," Gabriel said, his dark eyes locking onto mine with terrifying intensity. "Silvio was an accountant and a mid-level manager. He didn't have the chemistry background to synthesize a slow-acting cardiac inhibitor, nor did he have the logistics to bypass my security details. Someone inside my inner circle financed him."
He opened a leather ledger, sliding it across the desk toward me. It was filled with columns of figures, shipping manifests, and names of import-export shell companies operating out of the Chicago harbor.
"What does this have to do with me?" I asked, keeping my hands firmly at my sides.
"Everything," Gabriel replied quietly. "My mother has been trying to warn me for three months. She saw the meetings Silvio was having behind my back. She saw the ledger entries changing. She tried to sign to me about the dock warehouses, about the offshore accounts, about a man named Marcus Vance."
My heart stopped dead in my chest.
The room seemed to tilt on its axis. The air rushed out of my lungs, leaving a sharp, metallic taste in the back of my throat.
"What did you say?" I whispered, the sound barely escaping my lips.
Gabriel frowned, misinterpreting my shock. "Marcus Vance. A shipping broker who handles our eastern corridor. Do you know him?"
I stared at the mafia boss, the blood completely draining from my face. Marcus Vance wasn't just a shipping broker in Gabriel's criminal empire.
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Marcus Vance was my father. And he had disappeared five years ago, leaving behind a mountain of debts, a broken family, and a deaf son who never stopped waiting for him to walk through the front door.
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