The Detonator at East Docks

Chapter 2 The Blood Pact

Lilies crowded the cathedral until the air tasted sweet. Dante's place at the altar remained empty, and every whisper followed me down the aisle. He had made sure the Moretti empire saw how little his wedding mattered to him.

Chloe stood beside Julian in an emerald dress. When she caught my eye, she arranged her face into something close to sympathy.

[Look at her, all alone. The ghost bride. He probably hasn't even come home yet.]

"Oh, Ava, darling." Chloe pitched her voice for the first few pews. "Don't worry. Men like Dante are busy. I'm sure it was terribly important."

She kept glancing toward the guests to see who was watching. I had cried in front of this family before. It had never bought me anything.

I walked to the lectern and tapped the microphone. The feedback stopped the whispers.

"Thank you all for coming," I said. "Some of you see the empty place beside me and think my husband has insulted me."

The capos watched. So did their soldiers, bankers, and tame politicians.

"Dante is working while the rest of us sit beneath flowers and drink his father's wine. Your future Don is protecting the business that paid for this wedding. That is service to the family, not disrespect."

Approval moved through the pews. In the front row, the old Don gave me one short nod. That was enough; his capos followed.

Chloe stopped smiling. She had come for a humiliated bride and found the Don's capos agreeing with me instead.

-

That night, I ignored the bridal bed and worked at the suite's mahogany desk in a silk robe. The casino figures on my laptop were better company than anyone downstairs.

The door opened well past midnight.

Dante stood in the doorway with rain on his hair and blood on one cuff. He dropped his wet coat on the floor and looked from me to the untouched bed.

"I expected tears."

"Tears are a liability." I finished the column before looking up. "I don't trade in them."

I closed the laptop and slid a thin black ledger across the desk.

"What's this?"

"Your South District casino. It lost three hundred thousand a month for the last quarter. The managers blamed a downturn, but thirty seconds with the payroll says otherwise. They're paying people who don't exist and sending the money to the Caymans."

He read every page. One scarred finger followed the columns, then went back to check the routing number. His lieutenants had missed the theft. He did not need me to point that out.

Dante closed the ledger and came around the desk. I stayed where I was until the edge pressed into my back.

He caught my jaw in one hand and pressed his thumb beneath my chin. "You're clever. Clever people get dangerous. Use this against me, and I'll tear out your tongue myself."

I looked straight back at him.

"Then we understand each other." I opened the desk drawer beside my hip.

Among the hotel stationery lay my own ledger, a clean passport under a name he did not know, and the details of a Swiss account with enough untraceable money for me to disappear.

His gaze settled on the passport. His grip tightened once, then he let me go and stepped back.

"I stay while I'm useful and safe. The day either changes, I leave. This is a partnership, Dante. You don't own me."

He looked at me again, more carefully this time.

Then he glanced at the passport and gave a short laugh.

"This is going to be interesting."