Chapter 8 - The Shadow Behind the Silk
Rosalind’s hand turned rigid inside Don Marcone’s grip.
She did not pull away.
She remembered Ambrose’s rule: never show fear, never look away.
Ambrose stepped forward, his shoulder gently nudging Rosalind behind his flank while his hand dropped onto the gold head of Marcone’s cane.
Ambrose’s grip was so tight that the old man’s knuckles whitened under the pressure.
“My private affairs are not on the agenda tonight, Don Marcone,” Ambrose said softly, his voice carrying through the silent ballroom.
“We are here to discuss why two of your contract shooters entered Dover’s Diner on my territory.”
Marcone pulled his hand back, his smile returning, though his eyes burned with venom.
“A misunderstanding, Ambrose.”
“We were simply looking for a runaway girl who owes money to the state.”
“She owes nothing to anyone,” Ambrose replied, turning Rosalind toward the private dining salon.
“She is a Raldi now.”
They stayed at the gala for forty-five suffocating minutes, enduring fake congratulations and predatory stares, before Ambrose escorted her back to the limousine.
The moment the car doors locked, Rosalind yanked her hand away from him and pulled at the gold ring.
“Take it off.”
Ambrose grabbed her wrist, stopping her.
“Do not touch that ring.”
“Who was she?” Rosalind demanded, her voice shaking with furious indignation.
“Did you marry me to cover up your father’s ledger, or am I just wearing a dead woman’s jewelry to provoke your enemies?”
Ambrose let go of her wrist, looking out into the passing neon lights of the city.
“Her name was Elena.”
“She was Don Marcone’s niece.”
“Three years ago, my father arranged a marriage between us to seal a peace treaty between our families.”
“Two weeks before the wedding, I caught her opening the safe in my father’s office, photographing our logistics routes for her uncle.”
Rosalind swallowed hard.
“What did you do to her?”
Ambrose turned his gaze back to her, cold and unapologetic.
“I did not kill her, Rosalind.”
“I put her on a cargo freighter to South America with ten thousand dollars and told her never to touch American soil again.”
“The rumor that I drowned her was started by Marcone himself to save face among his capos.”
The car returned to the Federal Hill manor without another word spoken between them.
Upstairs in the private workshop, Rosalind changed back into a simple linen shirt and rolled her sleeves up past her burn scars.
She laid her father’s tools out on the felt pad beside the scorched volume.
Using a fine steel probe, she gently felt for the brass locking pin hidden beneath the headcap.
Click.
The tiny mechanism gave way with a soft mechanical sigh.
Using tweezers, she extracted the thin glass capillary filled with deadly sulfuric acid and set it safely into a beaker of water.
The secret compartment in the spine opened like a blooming flower.
Rosalind unfolded the first layer of preserved parchment, expecting to find bank account numbers or names of corrupt police captains.
Instead, a black-and-white photograph fell out onto the blotter.
It showed Warren Halloway standing in front of his workshop ten years ago, with his arm draped over the shoulder of a twenty-year-old Ambrose Raldi.
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And across the bottom of the photo, her father had written in his unmistakable cursive script:
“To my bravest son, who will finish what we started.”
