Chapter 3 - The Wolves at the GateThe grand dining room of the Rossi manor felt less like a place for dinner and more like an execution chamber.
A massive mahogany table sat at the center of the room beneath a crystal chandelier. Seated on one side were three senior syndicate bosses from Chicago. At the center sat Victor Moretti—a cruel, sharp-featured man with silver hair, cold grey eyes, and a predatory smile. Moretti was the head of the rival faction that had long contested Lorenzo’s control over the Eastern ports. He was also the prime suspect in the car bomb explosion that had taken Lorenzo’s pregnant wife, Sophia, two months prior.
Lorenzo sat at the head of the table, flanked by six heavily armed enforcers. He poured himself two fingers of scotch, his expression calm, unreadable, and utterly terrifying.
"You have five minutes, Victor," Lorenzo said smoothly, his raspy voice echoing against the marble walls. "Give me a single reason why I shouldn't have my men paint this room with your blood before you finish your drink."
Victor Moretti chuckled, a dry, raspy sound, and leaned back in his chair.
"Always so dramatic, Lorenzo," Victor sneered. "We came to discuss the shipping manifests in Brooklyn. But more importantly... we came to congratulate you. Word on the street was that the Rossi bloodline was ending. That your little heir was rotting away in his crib."
Lorenzo’s hand tightened around his crystal glass until his knuckles turned stark white, but he didn't break it.
"My son is thriving," Lorenzo said coldly.
"Yes, so I hear!" Victor smiled, his eyes glinting with malicious triumph. "Thanks to a miracle wet nurse you pulled off the cleaning staff. A girl named Hunter."
The air in the room grew suffocatingly dense. Marco shifted his stance behind Lorenzo, his hand inching closer to his weapon.
Victor leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, his smile widening into a grotesque grin.
"Did you know who you let into your nursery, Lorenzo?" Victor asked softly. "Did you bother checking her bloodline before you let her put her milk into the veins of the Rossi heir?"
Lorenzo didn't flinch. "Say what you came to say, Victor."
"Her name isn't just Hunter," Victor revealed, throwing a thick manila folder onto the center of the mahogany table. "Her full name is Hunter Vance-Moretti. She is the disowned, illegitimate daughter of my late brother, Julian. Which makes her my niece."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Lorenzo looked at the folder lying on the table, but he didn't open it. His mind raced at lightning speed, processing the explosive revelation. The woman who was nursing his son—the woman who held Leo’s life in her hands every single night—was a blood relative of the very man who had murdered his wife.
"She came here on purpose, Lorenzo," Victor lied smoothly, his eyes flashing with lethal deceit. "My brother kicked her out years ago because she was unstable. She lost a child three weeks ago in Newark. She infiltrated your house to poison your son from the inside out—to finish the job the bomb started!"
"That is a lie!" a voice rang out from the arched doorway.
Everyone at the table turned.
Hunter stood at the entrance of the dining room. She was wearing a simple dark dress, her face pale, but her chin held high with fierce defiance. Two guards had tried to stop her, but she had pushed right past them.
She walked directly into the room, ignoring the drawn weapons of Victor Moretti’s bodyguards, and stood beside Lorenzo’s chair.
"I didn't know who my father was until he abandoned my mother on his deathbed," Hunter said, her voice shaking with intense rage as she glared at Victor Moretti. "I have never taken a dime from the Moretti family. I didn't even know Lorenzo Rossi lived in this house when I took a job with the cleaning agency!"
Victor laughed coldly. "A likely story from a street rat trying to claim a piece of two billion dollars."
Hunter turned to Lorenzo. She looked down at the feared mob boss, her eyes filled with raw, unadulterated honesty and absolute heartbreak.
"I didn't know, Lorenzo," Hunter whispered, tears glistening in her eyes. "I swear on the memory of my dead baby girl... I didn't know. I only went into that nursery because I heard a child dying, and I couldn't bear to let another baby fade away."
Lorenzo looked up at her. He searched her face—the fierce protectiveness, the total lack of deceit, the genuine love she had shown his son every hour of every day for the past three weeks.
In that moment, Lorenzo realized something that shocked even himself. He trusted Hunter Vance more than he trusted any soldier, captain, or doctor in his entire empire.
Slowly, deliberately, Lorenzo stood up from his chair.
He didn't look at Hunter with suspicion. Instead, he stepped in front of her, placing his broad frame directly between her and Victor Moretti.
"You brought a file into my house, Victor," Lorenzo said, his voice dropping into a register so dark and lethal that even the seasoned Chicago bosses shuddered. "And you dared to insult the woman who saved my son's life."
"Lorenzo, she's a Moretti!" Victor barked, his grin vanishing, replaced by sudden alarm. "She’s poison!"
"She is not a Moretti," Lorenzo declared, his voice echoing through the grand hall like thunder. "She is under my protection. And anyone who speaks against her... speaks against the Rossi family."
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Before Victor could react, Lorenzo pulled his weapon and fired a single, blinding shot directly into the center of the mahogany table, shattering the wood into a thousand splinters.
"Get out of my house," Lorenzo ordered softly. "Before I decide to end this war tonight."
