Chapter 7: The Weight of a Bloodstained Name
“Moretti.”
The name tasted like toxic ash in Cassian’s dry mouth. He repeated it softly, staring into the emerald eyes of the woman who had served him coffee for nearly a year.
Vincent Moretti was not just a rival boss. He was a living ghost story whispered among made men in the dark corners of the East Coast. He was a ruthless, archaic New York Don who viewed the Costa Syndicate’s iron grip on the lucrative New England shipping ports as a deep, personal insult to his legacy.
But Vincent was strictly old school. He firmly believed in loud car bombs, public drive-by shootings, and brute force.
He didn’t believe in intricate, long-con espionage.
Cassian stared across the cracked, red laminate table at the woman he thought he knew so intimately. He analyzed the messy auburn hair, the permanently tired eyes, the cheap, floral perfume that had haunted his dreams.
It had all been a meticulously crafted weapon.
“Eight months,” Cassian said, his voice dropping to a dangerously quiet, vibrating timber. “For eight long months, the absolute heir to the Moretti Empire wiped down grease-stained diner counters in the South End.”
Emma didn’t flinch. She sat with the perfect, terrifying poise of a trained assassin.
“You endured the grueling, humiliating shifts of a diner waitress,” Cassian continued, leaning forward slightly. “You played the pathetic part of a financially ruined college student flawlessly. All to find a single, tiny crack in my armor.”
“And I found it, didn’t I, Cassian?” Emma replied smoothly, her lips curling into a wicked, triumphant smirk.
Cassian’s jaw tightened. “Your father must be incredibly proud of his little girl.”
“He will be,” Emma stated, her eyes locking onto his with a chilling, predatory intensity. “He will be immensely proud once your entire empire completely collapses by midnight tonight.”
The wind howled violently outside, furiously rattling the cheap glass panes of The Rusty Spoon. The snow was falling much heavier now, forming a blinding, impenetrable white sheet that entirely obscured the yellow streetlights.
They were completely cut off from the rest of the world.
“While you and I have been sitting here playing house in this pathetic, greasy little diner, my father’s heavily armed men have been quietly moving into the South End,” Emma whispered, relishing every single syllable of her victory.
“Is that right?” Cassian murmured, maintaining his icy, unreadable facade.
“By dawn tomorrow, Cassian, the great Costa family will be nothing but a minor, bloody footnote in Boston’s criminal history.”
(If you found out the person you trusted most was secretly plotting your total destruction, would you panic, or would you remain calm? What would be your first move?)
