Chapter 3 - The Price of Romano Blood
The winter sunrise over the Chicago skyline was the color of bruised steel.
I sat in the corner office of Feld & Associates on the forty-second floor of the Prudential building.
A fresh pot of black coffee sat untouched beside a stack of red-labeled folders.
Aaron Feld walked in carrying a steaming cup of tea and set it gently before me.
He placed a single white fountain pen on top of the documents.
The legal landscape of our marriage had never been equal, though Enzo had foolishly believed it was.
Enzo assumed that marrying me had automatically absorbed the Romano logistics network into his empire.
He had signed the prenuptial addendums five years ago without reading the fine print because he considered himself invincible.
My father had built a clause into the contract that remained dormant until triggered by a single condition.
Abandonment resulting in bodily injury or the death of an heir terminated all shared operational trusts immediately.
The shipping lanes belonged entirely to me.
The warehouse leases along the Calumet River belonged entirely to me.
The off-shore accounts that washed eighty percent of the Moretti family's cash flow were held under Romano corporate charters.
With three strokes of my pen, I signed the revocation of Enzo's power of attorney.
With another signature, I froze the operating capital accounts for eleven different shell corporations.
Aaron leaned across the desk, his gray eyes sharp and completely ruthless.
He asked if I wanted to serve the papers at his club or his headquarters.
I told him neither.
I told him to serve them at the Four Seasons restaurant during the noon lunch rush.
That was where Enzo took Bianca every Tuesday to parade her around his business associates.
I wanted the city to see the moment the crown was pulled off his head.
While Aaron gathered the folders, my investigator walked into the conference room.
His name was Miller, an ex-federal agent who knew the dark corners of Cook County better than the police commissioner.
He dropped an envelope of high-resolution surveillance photographs onto the polished wood.
The photographs showed Dante meeting a dark-haired man in the back of an auto repair shop in Cicero.
The man was Vincent Tatalia, the second son of our family's bitterest rival.
Beside Vincent in the third photograph stood Bianca Rossi, smiling as she took an envelope of cash.
My hands remained completely steady as I spread the pictures across the desk.
Enzo had not simply neglected me.
He had invited the architect of our baby’s murder to sit at his dining table.
The betrayal went far deeper than a straying husband's pathetic vanity.
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It was an execution disguised as an accident.
And Enzo had held the door open for the executioners while mocking his wife's dying cries.
