Chapter 4 - No Exit from the Devil’s Ballroom
I walked slowly toward Vanessa.
She tried to back away,
but the crowd of guests,
once her friends,
blocked her path.
They weren't helping her anymore.
They were watching the spectacle.
I looked at the silver dress,
now stained with the red wine I had "accidentally" spilled.
"It really is a beautiful dress,"
I said,
my voice calm.
"But silver doesn't suit a thief."
I reached out and plucked the diamond necklace from her throat.
The clasp broke,
leaving a small red mark on her skin.
"This was my mother's,"
I told her.
"Adrian told me he lost it in the move."
Vanessa was shaking so hard her teeth were chattering.
"I...
I didn't know,"
she sobbed.
"Please,
Elena,
I didn't know he was like this."
"You knew he had a wife,"
I countered.
"And you watched him whip her."
I turned away from her,
feeling nothing but a profound sense of disgust.
I looked at Margaret Cole,
who was still standing by the champagne tower,
looking like a queen who had just been told the guillotine was ready.
"And you,"
I said,
walking toward her.
"You said I came from nothing."
Margaret tried to maintain her dignity,
straightening her spine.
"You were a nobody,
Elena.
A quiet girl with no family of note."
Dominic laughed then.
It was a dark,
terrifying sound that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
"No family of note?"
Dominic repeated.
"Our grandfather was the man who built the very docks your husband used to smuggle his illegal steel."
He stepped up beside me,
his presence a towering wall of Moretti pride.
"Our father was the man who decided which politicians in this city got to keep their jobs."
He looked Margaret in the eye.
"We allowed Elena to marry into your family because she asked us to."
I looked at my brothers,
realizing how much I had hidden from them in an attempt to live a "normal" life.
I had wanted to be Elena Cole,
the woman who escaped her family's shadow.
But the shadow was the only thing that could save me.
"I thought I could change him,"
I admitted to Dominic.
"I thought if I was quiet enough,
kind enough,
he would love me."
"The Moretti women are not built for silence,
Elena,"
Luca said,
stepping forward.
"We let you try your way.
Now,
we do it our way."
Adrian was crawling on the floor,
trying to reach the door.
Dominic put his foot on Adrian's back,
pinning him to the marble.
"Where are you going,
Adrian?"
Dominic asked.
"The party is just getting started."
Outside,
the sirens began to wail.
Not the sirens of the police Adrian could bribe,
May you like
but the sirens of federal agents.
Nico had been busy.
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