Chapter 1 - The first time I caught Beatrice Gallagher stealing from me, she was standing beneath a chandelier worth more than most houses.Rain hammered against the windows of my Chicago mansion, turning the city beyond the glass into a blur of silver and black. Inside, everything was warm, polished, expensive.
And Beatrice looked painfully small in the middle of it.
She stood at the end of the dining room with her uniform sleeves pulled over her wrists, holding a cracked plastic container against her stomach.
I had just finished dinner with three of my capos.
Prime rib.
Roasted vegetables.
Garlic mashed potatoes.
An entire meal remained untouched on the serving table.
Beatrice glanced toward the hallway.
She thought no one was watching.
She quickly scraped portions of the food into her container.
Then she froze.
A tear rolled down her cheek.
That was what stopped me.
Not the theft.
The tear.
“Boss.”
My right-hand man, Dominic Russo, stepped beside me.
He had already reached inside his jacket.
“She’s stealing from you again.”
I watched Beatrice wipe her face with the back of her hand.
“Again?”
Dominic nodded.
“Third time this month.”
I looked back at her.
Three times.
Food.
Not cash.
Not jewelry.
Not medicine.
Food.
“Give the order,” Dominic said. “She needs to understand what happens when people take what belongs to you.”
I raised one hand.
He stopped.
“Don't touch her.”
Dominic frowned.
“Boss?”
I walked into the dining room.
Beatrice turned pale.
“Mr. Moretti.”
My name was Adrian Moretti.
For seventeen years, people in Chicago had whispered it before whispering prayers.
I owned warehouses on the South Side, restaurants downtown, construction companies, shipping businesses along the river.
And things that had never appeared on paper.
I had buried men who thought they could betray me.
I had bought judges.
Threatened politicians.
Destroyed competitors.
But that night, standing three feet from a maid holding leftover potatoes, I felt something I had not felt in years.
Curiosity.
“Put the container down.”
Her fingers tightened around it.
“I can explain.”
“I didn't ask for an explanation.”
She swallowed.
Slowly, she placed the container on the table.
I opened the lid.
Prime rib.
Vegetables.
Potatoes.
Enough food to feed four people.
“Are you hungry?”
“No, sir.”
“Then who eats this?”
Silence.
Beatrice looked at the floor.
“Answer me.”
She whispered,
“Someone who can't eat anything else.”
Dominic laughed.
I did not.
“Who?”
She shook her head.
“I'd rather lose my job.”
I stepped closer.
“Your job isn't what I'm worried about.”
Her eyes lifted.
For one second, fear disappeared.
What replaced it was something stranger.
Warning.
“Then what are you worried about, Mr. Moretti?”
I stared at her.
She knew something.
Something she believed would happen if she told me.
“Go home,” I said.
She blinked.
“Sir?”
“Take the food.”
Dominic stared at me.
“Boss…”
“Leave.”
Beatrice picked up the container.
She walked toward the kitchen.
Then stopped.
Without turning around, she said,
“You shouldn't follow me.”
My blood went cold.
I hadn't told her I intended to.
She walked away.
Dominic leaned toward me.
“She knows.”
“Knows what?”
“That you're going to follow her.”
I looked toward the kitchen.
“Get the cameras ready.”
Dominic smiled.
“Thought so.”
I waited until midnight.
The mansion went dark.
Beatrice slipped through the service entrance wearing a black coat.
She carried the plastic container beneath her arm.
I followed in an unmarked sedan.
She walked.
Through streets where the wind cut through expensive coats.
Past shuttered stores.
Past empty bus stops.
Past snow piled against broken sidewalks.
She never looked back.
After twenty minutes, she turned into an alley.
I stopped the car.
She approached an old brick building that had been condemned eleven years earlier.
There was no electricity.
No visible entrance.
No reason for anyone to be there.
Beatrice touched three bricks.
Then two.
Then one.
A section of the wall moved.
A hidden door opened.
She disappeared inside.
I stepped from the car.
My hand instinctively moved beneath my coat.
I followed.
The door closed behind me.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Then I heard a voice.
A man's voice.
Weak.
Barely alive.
“You brought food?”
Beatrice's answer trembled.
“Yes.”
I moved closer.
Then the lights flickered on.
I saw a narrow room.
A hospital bed.
Medical equipment.
Bloodstained blankets.
And a man sitting upright.
His face was thinner.
His hair was gray.
But I knew him.
I had seen photographs of him every year on the anniversary of his death.
A man my empire had declared dead twelve years ago.
A man whose coffin I had personally watched disappear beneath six feet of earth.
My brother.
Luca Moretti.
He looked directly at me.
His eyes filled with terror.
“No.”
Beatrice spun around.
The container fell from her hands.
Food scattered across the floor.
Luca whispered one sentence.
The sentence that shattered twelve years of my life.
“Adrian... you were never supposed to find me.”
Then somewhere behind me, a gun clicked.
May you like
And a voice said,
“Step away from the dead man, boss.”
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