Chapter 4
Sunday was not a ceremony.
Ryan insisted on that.
“A dinner.”
He sat in Emily’s library between two bodyguards.
Emily stood near the fireplace.
Natalie and Patricia occupied separate chairs.
Ethan was upstairs with Tilda.
Lucas with a nanny.
No children needed to hear this.
Emily looked at Ryan.
“A dinner.”
“Yes.”
“Where eight capos were invited.”
“Family dinner.”
“With my chair moved.”
Ryan said nothing.
Emily had already seen the dining room.
Her chair was gone.
Ryan's sat at the head.
A smaller one had been placed beside him for Natalie.
Patricia smiled.
“People adjust.”
Emily looked at her.
“To mistresses?”
“To reality.”
The older woman leaned back.
“You vanished for five years.”
Emily’s jaw tightened.
Patricia continued.
“Do you really think people were going to keep bowing to an empty chair?”
“I wasn't absent from the organization.”
“You were absent from your home.”
“Different thing.”
“Not to family.”
Patricia smiled cruelly.
“You can't rule a house from another continent.”
Emily stared.
Patricia continued because she mistook silence for weakness.
“You wanted secrets.”
“Overseas operations.”
“Danger.”
“Power.”
“And then you expected everyone here to freeze like furniture until Mommy came home.”
Emily’s eyes narrowed.
“Mommy?”
Patricia shrugged.
“You were barely one to Ethan.”
That one landed.
Ryan saw.
So did Natalie.
Natalie smiled.
“She's right.”
Emily looked at her.
Natalie crossed one leg over the other.
“Ethan stopped asking for you years ago.”
“No.”
“Fine.”
She smiled wider.
“We made him stop.”
Emily stepped closer.
Natalie kept talking.
“He used to stand at the front door every time a car came up the drive.”
“Pathetic.”
“Eventually Ryan told him only babies wait for mothers who leave.”
Ryan laughed softly.
Patricia nodded.
“Cruel perhaps.”
“Necessary.”
Emily stared at all three.
Not one believed they were villains.
That made them worse.
“Why the chain?”
Ryan answered.
“He found something.”
There.
Finally.
Emily remained still.
“What?”
Ryan realized.
Too late.
Natalie turned toward him.
Patricia’s jaw tightened.
Emily smiled faintly.
“Thank you.”
Ryan cursed.
Emily stepped closer.
“What did Ethan find?”
“Nothing.”
“You chained him after he found something.”
“He ran.”
“Toward what?”
Silence.
“Ryan.”
He looked away.
Patricia answered.
“A room.”
Emily turned.
“What room?”
“The old west cellar.”
Emily knew it.
Unused.
Sealed after a flood.
“Why was Ethan there?”
Natalie scoffed.
“Because he snoops.”
“He's six.”
“He's nosy.”
Natalie’s face hardened.
“He creeps around listening to conversations.”
Emily looked at her.
“What conversation?”
No answer.
Emily smiled again.
Another mistake.
Natalie realized.
Her face changed.
Emily moved toward the door.
“Show me.”
Ryan stood.
“No.”
Bodyguards pushed him back.
Emily looked at him.
“What is in the west cellar?”
Ryan's expression hardened.
“You don't get to walk in and take everything back.”
“This is my house.”
“Our house.”
“You chained my son in the yard.”
“He needed to learn consequences.”
Emily's voice turned cold.
“For finding your cellar?”
Ryan laughed.
“For not understanding his place.”
The phrase hung in the room.
His place.
Outside.
Beside a doghouse.
Emily looked at Patricia.
She did not disagree.
That told her enough.
They went downstairs.
The west cellar door had been replaced.
New steel.
New lock.
Emily looked at Ryan.
“Open.”
“No.”
A bodyguard forced it.
Inside sat no wine.
No furniture.
A meeting room.
Long table.
Maps.
Radios.
A Moretti crest mounted on the wall.
And eight chairs.
Emily walked slowly.
Each chair belonged to a capo.
Names engraved underneath.
Sunday's dinner.
Not ceremonial.
Operational.
Ryan had built a command room inside her house.
At the head sat one chair.
His.
Emily looked toward the wall map.
Overseas Moretti routes were crossed out in black.
Domestic routes highlighted red.
Natalie walked in behind them.
She smiled.
“Home matters more.”
Emily looked at her.
“You were replacing the overseas branch.”
Ryan laughed.
“Replacing?”
“No.”
“Cutting loose.”
Emily stared.
Five years.
Men she had kept alive.
Routes she had protected.
Operations her father built.
Ryan planned to abandon all of them.
Why?
Then she saw another mark.
A symbol she recognized.
Gray wolf.
The Corvino organization.
Rivals for fifteen years.
Emily turned.
“Why is Corvino on my map?”
Nobody answered.
She stepped closer.
“Ryan.”
He smiled.
“You always hated compromise.”
“What compromise?”
“Peace.”
Emily almost laughed.
“Corvino doesn't make peace.”
Patricia sighed.
“Men do when women stop turning every conversation into a war.”
Emily stared.
Patricia continued.
“Sunday ends the overseas drain.”
“Ryan takes domestic control.”
“And Corvino gets what?”
Silence.
Emily looked at the map again.
Then understood.
The east docks.
Her father’s most profitable domestic route.
“You sold them the docks.”
Ryan’s face hardened.
“Shared.”
“You sold them.”
“I bought peace.”
“With my territory.”
“With family territory.”
Emily turned toward him.
Ryan lifted his chin.
“The family finally grows up Sunday.”
Then a small voice came from the doorway.
“No.”
Everyone turned.
Ethan.
Barefoot.
Tilda behind him.
Emily's face tightened.
“You should be upstairs.”
Ethan looked at Ryan.
Then pointed at the Corvino symbol.
“Those are the men Dad lets in at night.”
Ryan went white.
Emily crouched.
“What men?”
Ethan’s eyes filled.
“The ones who said Mommy has to stay gone until Grandma finishes.”
Patricia stopped breathing.
Emily looked at her.
“Finishes what?”
May you like
Ethan whispered:
“Making everybody hate you.”
