Chapter 3 - The Confession in the Cold StorageTen minutes later, Mercer and two armed associates dragged Gregory Vance out of the restaurant's walk-in freezer room. The floor manager was pale, shivering violently, and struggling against the iron grip on his arms. His expensive suit jacket was stained with condensation, and his hair was plastered to his forehead.
They threw him onto the linoleum floor of the private dining room.
Gregory scrambled backward until his spine hit the mahogany leg of the banquet table. He looked up, his eyes darting frantically between Dante Moretti, Lorenzo Vale, and the silent, watchful figure of Mara standing near the wall.
"Mr. Moretti!" Gregory gasped, his voice cracking. "I swear to God, I don't know what's happening! Your men just grabbed me out of nowhere—"
Dante walked over slowly, crouching down until he was at eye level with the terrified manager. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't pull a weapon. He simply looked at Gregory the way a butcher looks at a lamb.
"Where is your wife, Gregory?" Dante asked softly.
"She... she went home! She wasn't feeling well, she left twenty minutes ago—"
"Liar," Mara interjected.
Gregory snapped his head toward her, his face twisting with sudden, venomous hatred. "You! You little nobody rat! You did this! You brought the drinks!"
"I brought the drinks," Mara said, stepping forward into the light. "And I watched you on the security footage at 9:12 sliding your gloved hand across the service station counter. Or did you forget that the camera in the back hallway catches the reflection in the stainless steel prep table?"
Gregory froze. The color drained entirely from his face, leaving his skin a sickly, chalky gray. His jaw slackened, and the frantic lie died in his throat.
Dante stood up slowly, towering over the broken manager.
"Who paid you, Gregory?" Dante asked, his voice a lethal whisper. "Who decided that my daughter’s sixth birthday was the right time to send a message?"
"I... I had no choice!" Gregory sobbed, pressing his hands against the floor. "They had my brother! They took him off the docks three days ago! They said if I didn't put the compound in the Moretti child's glass, they would send him back to me in pieces!"
"Who?" Dante demanded, grabbing Gregory by the lapel of his wet suit jacket and hoisting him six inches off the floor with one hand. "Give me a name!"
"I don't know their names! It was a burner phone! A man with a raspy voice, he called himself The Architect! He said—he said if I cooperated, my brother would be dropped off at our apartment tonight!"
Lorenzo stepped forward, his eyes narrowing. "The Architect. That's a ghost story from the East Coast syndicates. No one uses that moniker in Chicago."
"He used it," Gregory whimpered, tears streaming down his face. "He said Dante Moretti has too many walls, too many shields. The only way to break the crown was to strike through the heart."
Dante lowered Gregory back to the floor, releasing him with a look of absolute disgust, as if touching him had contaminated his hands. He wiped his palms with a linen napkin, tossing it onto the table.
"Mercer," Dante said coldly. "Take him to the basement warehouse. Keep him breathing, but make sure he remembers every second of tonight."
"Wait! Mr. Moretti, please!" Gregory screamed as Mercer and his men hauled him toward the service stairs. "I told you everything I know! Please!”
The heavy iron door slammed shut, cutting off the manager’s desperate cries.
Silence descended upon the private dining room once more. Dante turned around, running a hand through his dark hair. For the first time all evening, he looked exhausted—not physically, but with the bone-deep weariness of a man whose fortress had been breached from within.
He walked over to the table, picking up the sealed evidence container holding the poisoned glass. He stared at the cloudy residue inside.
Then, he looked across the room at Mara.
"You saved her life," Dante said, his voice flat, devoid of its earlier menace.
"I saved my own life, too," Mara replied honestly. "If she had died, your men would have beaten me to death in this room before the ambulance even arrived."
A faint, ironic smile touched Dante’s lips. "You’re brutally honest, Mara Ellis. Most people who stand in this room lie to me within five seconds out of sheer terror."
"I don't have time to lie," Mara said, looking down at her worn-out shoes. "My rent is due in six days, my bank account has forty-eight dollars in it, and I just lost the only job that was keeping me off the street. I have bigger problems than being polite to a mob boss."
Dante chuckled—a low, dark sound that echoed softly against the mahogany walls. He reached into his inner suit pocket, pulled out a thick, black leather checkbook, and pulled a gold fountain pen from his lapel.
"How much is your rent?" Dante asked.
Mara blinked, taken aback. "What?"
"Your rent. How much do you owe?"
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"That’s none of your business," Mara said, crossing her arms defensively.
"Nothing in Chicago is nobody's business anymore, especially not the person who kept my daughter breathing," Dante said, clicking the pen. "Name a figure."
