Chapter 6 - Shadows in the Estate
Life inside the Moretti mansion changed overnight. The opulence remained, but the ice had melted, replaced by a tense, watchful guardianship.
Elra’s mother, safely transferred to a private, heavily guarded VIP wing at Chicago General Hospital, had her medical bills permanently erased by a silent wire transfer from a Swiss account bearing Lorenzo’s initials. Elra herself had been given a suite on the second floor—not as a maid, but as the head guardian of Leo and Mia.
The children clung to her like ivy to an old oak. They wouldn't let her out of their sight, terrified that the nightmare in the freezer was something that could happen twice.
It was three days after the aborted wedding when Elra found Lorenzo standing alone in his private study on the third floor. The room was dark, lit only by the amber glow of a desk lamp and the flickering flames of a stone fireplace. On the mahogany desk lay a dossier stamped with red ink: THORNE.
"They're coming, aren't they?" Elra asked softly, stepping into the room.
Lorenzo didn't look up from a photograph of his late brother. "Senator Vance thinks he can declare war. He thinks because our families signed a treaty, I won't retaliate for what his daughter did to my blood. He's forgetting who built the North Side."
"Isabella?" Elra asked cautiously.
Lorenzo’s jaw tightened. "Isabella is no longer a concern. Her father traded her the moment he realized she failed. To the East Coast families, a broken merger is a liability. They’ve already disowned her."
Elra walked closer to the desk. "She tried to kill children, Lorenzo. Cold-blooded murder."
Lorenzo finally looked up, his dark eyes fixing on hers. There was no warmth in them, but there was a strange, unprecedented respect. "In my world, betrayal is paid in blood. But Isabella isn't dead yet. I left her in the furnace room for forty-eight hours with no water. When my men pulled her out, she was babbling to the walls."
He stood up, towering over the desk.
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"She’s broken, Elra. But her father is bringing an army to Chicago to clean up the mess. And you are right in the middle of it."
Before Elra could process the warning, a deafening explosion ripped through the front gates of the Moretti estate. Glass shattered across the courtyard as the heavy iron security perimeter was blown wide open.
