chap 2
Dante Moretti remained seated in his high-backed leather chair, his broad shoulders squared, his slate-gray eyes fixed entirely on Vincent Rossi. The former state supreme court justice, a man who had spent decades dictating the laws of New Jersey from padded courtrooms, now looked like an aging predator cornered in his own den. His manicured fingers trembled slightly as he tried to adjust the lapel of his tailored Italian suit. Beside him, Victoria Rossi was hyperventilating, her diamond drop earrings glittering frantically under the amber lights as she realized her father's supreme judicial immunity had instantly evaporated under Dante's piercing scrutiny.
“Lock the exterior perimeter,” Dante commanded without raising his voice, his deep baritone rolling across the room with the force of a tectonic shift. Two armed enforcers stationed by the brass double doors immediately slid the heavy deadbolts into place. “Nobody steps foot off this floor until I have the complete ledger of everything Vincent and his associates have been burying beneath my boardwalk.”
Victoria rushed forward, her heels clicking sharply against the Persian carpet, her face contorted in a mask of desperate panic. “Dante, darling, you cannot possibly take the word of an hourly floor stewardess over my father! This is an absurd manipulation! She ruined a high-stakes game, spilled liquor over a guest, and now she is spinning theatrical fairy tales to save her job!”
Dante did not even glance at her. He slowly raised his hand, a single gesture that stopped Victoria dead in her tracks as effectively as a loaded gun barrel pressed against her forehead.
“Victoria,” Dante murmured, his voice dropping into a register so chillingly calm that the surrounding gaming commissioners physically recoiled. “I have known you for three years. In all that time, I have never once seen you defend a member of my staff when an accident occurred. Yet tonight, you sprinted across this salon before the ice cubes had even settled on the carpet. You didn't care about the spilled liquor. You cared about what your father dropped beneath the rim of that table.”
Vincent Rossi forced a brittle, nervous laugh, attempting to reclaim a shred of his vanished authority. “Dante, this is madness. Let the girl go back to her station. I am willing to overlook this little outburst for the sake of our ongoing casino partnership.”
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“Partnership?” Dante slowly rose to his full height, towering over the baccarat table like an executioner stepping onto a scaffold. His knuckles, tattooed with the iron cross of the North End syndicate, rested flat against the green baize. “You brought your political filth into my house, Vincent. You laid hands on an employee under my roof, you threatened her family's livelihood, and for eight years, you have operated a shadow network right beneath my nose. Partnership ended the moment your fingers tore that fabric.”
Teresa watched in stunned silence as the unbreakable facade of the Rossi dynasty crumbled piece by piece. She thought of her little sister waiting in the sterile hospital room across town, and for the first time, she felt a profound surge of hope. The king of Atlantic City was not going to let them walk away.
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