Chapter 2 - The Eagle on the Gold LighterThe cigar smoldered on the ivory hem of the silk gazar gown, sending a delicate curl of acrid blue smoke into the frozen air of the rotunda.
Nobody moved to stomp it out.
Fifty high-society patrons stood paralyzed, their champagne flutes suspended in midair, their breathing shallow and jagged.
Dominic Morelli’s fingers remained wrapped around the custom grip beneath his charcoal jacket. He did not draw the weapon. The lethal stillness rolling off his towering frame had the crushing density of an iron vault door swinging shut on a subterranean vault.
Slowly, his unblinking dark eyes rose back toward the mezzanine.
Silvio Morelli stood fifty feet above us, his liver-spotted hands clutching the carved mahogany balustrade so hard his knuckles resembled bleached bone. The polished patriarch—the silver-haired statesman who had negotiated peace between New York and Providence—looked suddenly ancient, shrunken inside his bespoke wool overcoat.
“Dominic,” Silvio’s voice drifted down through the rotunda, thin, reedy, and vibrating with artificial paternal concern. “You cannot allow an unvetted domestic worker to sow poison between our families on the eve of our greatest alliance. The girl is fabricating memories to extract money from our treasury.”
Dominic took half a step forward, his leather shoes clicking evenly against the marble.
“Maya,” he said softly, never breaking his upward stare.
“Yes, Mr. Morelli?” I whispered, keeping my hands pinned to the seams of my trousers.
“The scrap fabric you cut away in Maine,” Dominic said, his baritone smooth, deep, and devoid of human warmth. “What color was it?”
“Pale cream silk gazar on the outside, sir,” I answered clearly, every detail of that rain-swept midnight etched permanently into my memory. “And saturated in dark arterial red on the inside lining. When I cut the mangled weave away from the rib bone, the woman cursed because the blood was ruining her shoes.”
Vivian let out an involuntary, choked gasp, stumbling back two steps until her heel caught the edge of the Persian runner.
Dominic didn't look at her.
“And the lighter?” he asked.
“Solid yellow gold, sir. Worn smooth along the hinge from heavy use. On the face was an engraved eagle clutching an anchor in its talons, with the Roman numerals MMXX stamped into the base plate.”
A collective, shuddering breath tore through the crowd.
The older syndicate captains on the ground floor exchanged glances of cold, terrified revelation.
MMXX. 2020.
The year Leo Morelli turned eighteen. The exact lighter Dominic had custom-ordered from a master goldsmith on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence as his younger brother’s coming-of-age gift.
Silvio’s hand jerked away from the railing as if the polished wood had burst into flames. His right hand plunged instinctively toward his coat pocket.
“Dante,” Dominic commanded, barely raising his voice above a whisper.
From the shadows behind the mezzanine colonnade, Dominic’s chief of tactical operations moved like a wraith. A heavy, silenced automatic pistol cracked against the back of Silvio’s skull with the dull, concussive thud of an iron pipe striking wet wood.
THUD.
Silvio’s knees buckled. The old patriarch collapsed against the balustrade, his chin striking the marble ledge before he slumped onto the carpeted landing, a thin trail of crimson leaking from his silver hairline.
Dante knelt immediately, reaching into the unconscious man’s right coat pocket.
He stood up, walked to the edge of the balcony, and held his open palm over the rotunda.
Dangling between his gloved fingers was a heavy, yellow-gold lighter.
The overhead chandelier caught the engraving: an eagle gripping an anchor, with MMXX glinting beneath the crystal light.
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Dominic didn't reach up to catch it. He simply tilted his head, his dark eyes locking onto Vivian Sterling where she cowered on the bottom steps.
“You didn't go to Paris to buy silk, Vivian,” Dominic whispered, each word dropping like an iron weight into deep water. “You were in the passenger seat of Silvio’s armored Suburban when he ran Leo’s coupe off the cliffs of Route 1.”
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