Chapter 7 - The Winter Siege
The lasagna was legendary.
I used the Sicilian olive oil Marco had stolen, crushed San Marzano tomatoes from the cellar, whole milk ricotta whipped with fresh nutmeg and cracked pepper, and sheets of pasta rolled so thin they melted on the tongue. When the New York capos finished their meal, one of them—an old-school Sicilian boss named Don Falcone—demanded to see the chef.
I walked into the smoke-filled dining room with flour on my apron and a burn mark on my forearm.
Falcone took my hand, kissed the knuckles with absolute reverence, and slipped a diamond-encrusted gold ring off his pinky finger, pressing it into my palm. “Signora,” the old man rasped. “In Brooklyn, they charge five hundred dollars a plate for garbage. You cook like my grandmother before the war. If Roman ever disrespects you, call me. You have a kitchen in New York for life.”
Roman watched from the head of the table, his eyes gleaming like dark obsidian. “Careful, Falcone. Miss Sullivan is under my personal protection. Attempting to recruit my staff is considered an act of war.”
The room laughed, but the underlying threat was clear as crystal.
The poisoned meat had been a message from the Moretti syndicate—a rival family that had been trying to squeeze Roman out of the Philadelphia shipping terminals for five years. The failed assassination signaled the start of an all-out turf war.
Over the next three weeks, Ravenwood became an active military garrison.
The iron gates were locked shut. Heavy steel shutters dropped over the ground-floor windows. Black SUVs rolled in at all hours of the night, riddled with bullet holes, carrying wounded men who couldn’t be taken to public hospitals without alerting the authorities.
The mansion’s grand billiard room was converted into an emergency triage ward.
And without anyone asking, I became the head nurse.
It started with Bruno. He was brought in at 2:00 AM on a Friday, his shoulder shredded by buckshot from a close-range ambush at the docks. Dr. Mercer was swamped trying to patch Dante’s punctured lung on the pool table, and Bruno was losing blood fast on a leather sofa, cursing violently and thrashing in agony.
“Hold him down!” someone yelled.
I pushed past the panicking enforcers, carrying a pot of boiling water, clean linen towels, and a bottle of high-proof bourbon from the bar.
“Bruno! Shut your mouth and look at me!” I shouted, slapping his uninjured cheek with enough force to snap his head around.
He blinked through the haze of pain, focusing on my face. “Maggie…?”
“You’re going to be fine, you big baby,” I told him, soaking a towel in boiling water and pouring half the bourbon straight into the open wound. He howled, his body arching off the leather. “Squeeze the sofa cushion, don't move, and breathe. If you die on this couch, I’m throwing your breakfast in the trash tomorrow.”
For twenty minutes, while Mercer worked on Dante, I cleaned the buckshot out of Bruno’s shoulder using sanitized needle-nose pliers and packed the wound with sterile gauze, binding it with tight, expert wraps I’d learned while caring for my mother during her hospice months.
When I finished, Bruno was pale, shaking, and sweating through his shirt, but the bleeding had stopped.
He reached up with his trembling, uninjured hand and gripped my sleeve.
“Thanks… Ma,” he whispered, his eyes closing in exhaustion.
May you like
I didn’t correct him. I just brushed the wet hair from his forehead, washed the blood from my hands, and walked back to the kitchen to start the breakfast biscuits.
***