Chapter 3 - The Family Dinner
The grand drawing room of the Oak Brook estate was lined with floor-to-ceiling glass paneling that overlooked the dark, rain-swept gardens below. A single crystal decanter of twenty-year-old scotch sat on the low marble table between two leather armchairs.
Julian Voss walked into the room with his hands in the pockets of his tailored navy overcoat. He was thirty-six, tall, with sleek dark hair combed back smoothly, sharp blue eyes, and a charming, polished smile that had fooled Chicago’s municipal boards for a decade.
"Damian," Julian smiled, taking off his coat and tossing it casually over the back of a chair. "The guards at the gate looked like they were preparing for an invasion. What's going on? Cole wouldn't tell me a word in the driveway."
Damian stood by the glass window, his back to the room, watching the rain strike the glass. He held a crystal glass of scotch in his right hand, the amber liquid motionless.
"It's quiet out here, Julian," Damian said, his voice smooth, almost conversational. "You forget how quiet the suburbs are when you spend all your time in the West Loop."
Julian chuckled, stepping toward the bar to pour himself a glass. "Well, the West Loop is where the money moves, cousin. Speaking of which, the auditor from Deloitte finished the Q3 reviews for the dock development. We're clear for the city permit on Monday."
"Good," Damian said. He turned around slowly.
Julian raised his glass. "To the family."
Damian didn't lift his glass. He simply looked at Julian—a cold, unblinking stare that made the smile on Julian’s face flicker and freeze for a fraction of a second.
"Is something wrong, Damian?" Julian asked, setting his glass down on the marble table with a soft clink. "You look... distant."
"I was thinking about four years ago," Damian said.
Julian’s eyes narrowed slightly, though his posture remained relaxed. "Four years ago? What about it?"
"I was thinking about the week I went down to the Gulf to settle the union strike," Damian said, stepping away from the window, moving with a slow, predatory rhythm that began to fill the spacious room with an suffocating pressure. "The week Nadia left."
Julian took a subtle breath. His right hand twitched once near his pocket before he controlled it. "Damian, we've talked about this. The girl was a distraction. She was never built for this life. She took the money and she ran. You know how those South Side girls are."
"She didn't take the money, Julian," Damian said softly.
Julian’s eyes darted toward the door, then back to Damian. "What are you talking about?"
"She threw the envelope back through your car window," Damian continued, stopping five feet from his cousin. "She took a CTA train to Rockford with three hundred dollars in her account, a pregnant belly, and a letter bearing my forged signature."
The silence that followed was absolute.
The rain outside seemed to stop. The crackle of the fireplace in the adjacent room faded into nothing.
Julian’s face slowly lost its easy, charming warmth. The arrogance drained away, leaving behind the sharp, calculating edge of a man who realized he had just walked into an iron trap.
"Damian," Julian said, his voice dropping its friendly tone, becoming cold and precise. "I don't know who you've been talking to, but if someone is spreading rumors about four years ago—"
"She’s upstairs," Damian interrupted flatly.
Julian froze.
"She’s upstairs in the east wing," Damian repeated, his voice dropping into that dark, gravelly register that made men pray for mercy. "And so is my four-year-old daughter."
Julian’s breath hitched. A bead of sweat formed at his hairline, glistening under the chandelier light. "Damian... listen to me..."
"For four years," Damian said, stepping closer, his tall, massive frame casting a long, dark shadow over his cousin, "I thought she didn't love me. For four years, I carried the belief that I was too cold, too dark, too dangerous for a clean woman to stay beside me. I let my heart die, Julian. I turned into a ghost because I thought my presence in her life was a curse."
He reached out, his hand moving so fast Julian didn't even have time to flinch.
Damian’s large, scarred fingers closed around Julian’s throat, slamming him backward against the heavy oak wall beside the fireplace.
BANG!
The crystal glasses on the bar rattled violently.
Julian choked, his hands clawing uselessly at Damian’s iron grip. His feet dangled two inches off the floor, his face turning a deep, dangerous red as the air was cut off from his lungs.
"You didn't just lie to her," Damian growled, his face inches from Julian’s, his grey eyes burning with an ancient, apocalyptic rage. "You stole four years of my daughter's life. You made her eat cheap cereal in a third-floor walk-up on Garfield Street while you drank fifty-year-old scotch on my father's money."
"D-Damian..." Julian gasped out, his eyes bulging with terror. "P-please..."
The door to the drawing room opened softly.
Nadia stood in the doorway. She had left Ava upstairs with Sylvia, unable to stay behind while the man who had ruined her youth sat in the same house.
She saw Julian dangling against the wall, choking, his hands clawing at Damian’s wrist. She saw the lethal, unyielding darkness in Damian’s eyes—the true face of the mafia don that the rest of Chicago feared.
"Damian," Nadia called out, her voice trembling but clear.
Damian didn't look back, but his grip didn't loosen. "Go back upstairs, Nadia."
"No," she said, taking three steps into the room, her eyes fixed on Julian’s terrified face. "Don't kill him, Damian."
Damian’s jaw flexed. "He tried to put you in prison, Nadia. He set up a forged deed to have you taken into custody. He was going to have you killed in a county transport van."
"I know," Nadia said, stepping closer until she was standing right beside Damian. "I know what he is. But if you kill him right here, in this house, while Ava is sleeping upstairs... then he wins. He turns you into the monster he told me you were four years ago."
Damian’s chest rose and fell in heavy, ragged gasps. The rage inside him was a screaming storm, demanding blood, demanding balance for the four years of pain he and Nadia had endured.
He looked at Nadia. He saw the strength in her dark eyes, the quiet, unbroken dignity that had survived poverty, fear, and solitude.
Slowly, deliberately, Damian lowered his arm.
Julian dropped to the floor in a heap, coughing violently, clutching his throat, gasping for air as he slumped against the baseboard.
Damian looked down at his cousin with absolute, unadulterated disgust.
"Cole," Damian called out without turning around.
Cole and two armed guards stepped into the room instantly, their weapons drawn.
"Take him to the basement," Damian commanded coldly. "Strip him of his phone, his watch, and his coat. Lock him in the holding cell until Sylvia finishes filing the corporate asset seizure papers. By tomorrow morning, Julian Voss does not own a single dollar, a single share, or a single acre of land in the state of Illinois."
"You can't do this!" Julian choked out from the floor, his voice raspy and broken. "The board—"
"The board will receive the forged signatures and the Delaware bank statements by midnight," Damian said, stepping back beside Nadia. "If you ever speak my daughter's name again, Julian, I won't use the law. I'll use the river."
Cole grabbed Julian by his collar, dragging him out of the room like a sack of trash as the heavy oak doors shut behind them.
The room fell quiet once more.
Damian stood in the center of the drawing room, his breath coming in slow, deep cycles as the adrenaline slowly ebbed from his blood. He turned to Nadia.
"Thank you," he said softly.
Nadia looked at him, her gray-dark eyes soft, searching his face. "You listened to me."
"I will always listen to you," Damian vowed, his voice thick with emotion. "I spent four years not hearing your voice. I will never ignore it again."
May you like
Nadia offered a small, weary, beautiful smile—the first real smile he had seen on her face in four years.
"Come upstairs," she whispered softly, reaching out to touch his sleeve. "Ava wants to show you her drawing."
