Chapter 4 - The Wine Cellar Confession
The lower wine cellar of the Castiglione estate was carved straight out of the granite foundation beneath Boston Harbor. It smelled of damp stone, centuries-old oak barrels, and millions of dollars' worth of vintage Bordeaux. It was also soundproofed to the point of absolute silence.
Marco sat tied to a heavy wooden Windsor chair near the center of the vault.
His face was pale, sweat beading heavily on his forehead, his lower lip split and swollen where Giani had evidently introduced him to the realities of underworld interrogation before Leo and I arrived down the stone steps.
Giani stood off to the side, leaning against a rack of Dom Pérignon, arms crossed over his massive chest.
Leo walked slowly toward the chair, his footsteps echoing off the vaulted brick ceiling. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't pull a weapon. He just stood there, looking down at the man who had eaten lunch at the same mess table with him for over a decade.
“Marco,” Leo said softly.
Marco wouldn't look up. He stared fixedly at the wet stone floor between his boots. “Vince... boss. I swear to God, I didn't mean for it to go this far.”
“Go as far as what, Marco?” Leo asked, his tone deceptively gentle. “Placing an electronic tracking beacon in a young woman's personal handbag? Or selling the floor plans of my master suite to Apex Logistics?”
Marco flinched violently at the name. “They had my boy, Leo! Down in Providence. Some gambling debts from the track that got out of hand. They said if I didn't drop the tracker in the maid’s bag, they’d break his legs. Then they said if I didn't leave the side gate unlocked tonight for their cleanup crew, they’d bury him in a marsh!”
The silence in the cellar dropped ten degrees.
I stood near the arched doorway, my hands clenched so tight my fingernails dug into my palms. Tonight. The side gate was supposed to be left unlocked tonight.
“You traded my life—and the security of this entire house—for a bookie's debt?” Leo’s voice didn't rise an octave, but the air in the room seemed to freeze.
“I didn't want to hurt nobody!” Marco sobbed, finally looking up, tears streaming down his bruised cheeks. “They swore they were just coming for the ledgers in the study! They said they wouldn't touch the girl!”
“They put a tracking device on me,” I stepped forward out of the shadows, my voice shaking with a cold, blinding fury. “They used me like a homing beacon to walk straight into the house where I work, where I live, where I try to keep my head down and mind my own business!”
Marco shrank back against the wooden chair, terrified of the look in my eyes.
Leo glanced sideways at me, a flicker of something dangerously protective crossing his hard features before he turned his attention back to the traitor.
“Giani,” Leo said calmly.
“Boss?”
“Take Marco’s car keys, his phone, and his wallet. Put him in the back of the transport van, drive him down to the docks at Southie, and put him on a freight freighter heading for Halifax tonight. If I ever see his face in the state of Massachusetts again, feed him to the harbor crabs.”
“No—please, Leo! Please!” Marco screamed as Giani hauled him out of the chair with effortless strength, dragging him toward the heavy iron bulkhead door.
The heavy door slammed shut, cutting off the sobbing echoes.
The cellar fell back into an eerie, suffocating quiet.
Leo stood alone in the center of the room, looking down at the empty chair. The rage that had driven him all morning seemed to evaporate, leaving behind a profound, bone-deep exhaustion.
He slowly turned to face me.
“Are you alright?” he asked, his voice rough.
“I’m covered in adrenaline, my phone was tracked for three days, and I apparently work in a fortress surrounded by traitors,” I snapped, my voice cracking slightly. “How do you think I am, Leo?”
He walked slowly toward me across the stone floor. He didn't stop until he was standing right in front of me, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes.
“You were right,” he said quietly.
I blinked, caught off guard. “About what?”
“About everything last night. About me treating you like an asset instead of a person. About me watching you too closely because I couldn't bear the thought that my world might reach out and touch yours.”
I stared at him, my heart hammering against my ribs for an entirely different reason now. “Leo...”
“I didn't hire you because you needed a job, Maeve,” he confessed, the words dragging out of him like teeth being pulled. “I hired you because three years ago, when you walked into my office for the interview with mud on your boots and defiance in your eyes, you were the only person in Boston who didn't look at me like I was a monster or a god. You just looked at me like a man who needed his floors cleaned.”
“That,” I whispered, a sudden lump forming in my throat, “is because you are a very messy man.”
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A genuine, rare smile broke across Leo’s face—tired, slightly crooked, but entirely real.
“I am,” he agreed softly. “And I’m going to spend a very long time letting you fix it.”
