Chapter 4 - Blood and Silk
The basement of the carriage house had not been used since the days of prohibition rum-running. It was dry, cold, and lit by a single bare bulb hanging from an exposed oak joist.
Marcus stood guard at the street-level trapdoor, his rifle resting on the sill of a decorative ventilation grate that overlooked the cobblestones of Mount Vernon Street.
Clara sat in the corner, clutching a blanket Roman had pulled from an old horse trunk, rocking back and forth, praying in rapid, broken Italian.
On a battered workbench, Roman cut through the shoulder of Serena’s cashmere sweater with a pair of trauma shears. The wool was soaked in dark crimson, the bullet having furrowed a clean, deep trench across the deltoid muscle before exiting behind the collarbone.
"You're lucky," Roman said, his voice clipped as he poured antiseptic directly onto the wound.
Serena hissed through her teeth, her fingers digging so violently into Roman’s forearm that her manicured nails broke through his cotton shirt, drawing blood.
"Lucky wasn't... the word I was thinking," she managed, her eyes shut tight against the blinding fire of the alcohol.
"Bore straight through the muscle," Roman said, packing the wound with sterile gauze from Marcus’s go-bag. "No bone shattered. No arterial spray. You'll have an ugly scar to match the engagement ring."
Serena opened her eyes. They were luminous with pain, but entirely devoid of fear. "You're still going to marry me?"
Roman paused, his hands holding the pressure bandage against her smooth, blood-streaked skin. "You took a bullet that was aimed at Clara’s spine."
"I took a bullet because I couldn't bear the thought of that little girl growing up an orphan like you," she whispered, her voice rough. "Like me."
Roman looked at her face—the elegant sweep of her jaw, the streak of soot and blood across her cheek, the fierce, unyielding pride that even a squad of hitmen couldn't strip away.
Twelve years he had lived in an iron cage of his own making. Twelve years of checking under cars for remote wires, of sleeping with an automatic on his nightstand, of assuming that every hand extended toward him held a hidden blade. He had treated this marriage as a corporate annexation, an unpleasant medicine required to stop his men from dying in the street.
He had never considered that the woman sent across the table to negotiate that peace was carrying a heavier grief than his own.
"Why didn't you come to me?" Roman asked softly, his thumbs gently wiping away the smudge of soot beneath her left eye. "When you found the ledger. When you found the truth about Elias."
"Because you loved him," Serena said, leaning her head back against the brick wall of the cellar, exhaustion pulling at the corners of her mouth. "He raised you after the bombing. He was the one who handed you your father’s ring. If I had walked into your study three months ago and said, 'Your cousin murdered your father and framed my family,' you would have put a bullet through my forehead and called it honor."
She was right. The bitter, corrosive truth of it burned in his throat like acid.
"He won't leave Ellie alive," Clara whimpered from the dark corner. "Mr. Bellucci... Elias... he was there the day Tomas was buried. He gave me an envelope with five thousand dollars. He patted Ellie on the head. He told her her father was a hero. All the while... all the while..."
"Clara," Roman said, turning to look at the trembling woman. His voice had lost its sharpness; it was heavy with the weight of an unpayable debt. "Tomas died protecting my father’s name. Your daughter will sleep in her own bed tomorrow night. I swear that on the bones of my ancestors."
"Boss," Marcus called down softly from the ladder. "SUV just pulled up to the alley. Black Suburban. One man. No lights."
Roman stood instantly, drawing his Sig Sauer, gesturing for Serena to stay down behind the workbench. He climbed the wooden rungs of the ladder until his eyes were level with the street grate.
The driver stepped out into the freezing rain.
He wore a gray fisherman’s cap and an old navy peacoat. He walked with a heavy, dragging limp in his left leg. When he reached up to pull his collar against the wind, the yellow streetlight revealed his right hand.
The two smallest fingers were gone.
"Hold your fire, Marcus," Roman said.
Roman pushed the heavy oak cellar door open, stepping out into the sleet-slicked alley with his weapon held low at his side.
Silas Kane didn't reach for a gun. He stood under the dripping drainpipe of the carriage house, his face weathered into deep, canyon-like wrinkles, smelling powerfully of salt water, diesel fuel, and stale tobacco.
"You took your time, Roman," Silas said, his voice sounding like two river stones grinding together. "Your old man would have had me cornered three hours ago."
"Where is Ellie?" Roman asked, his finger resting lightly on the trigger guard.
May you like
"She's safe," Silas said. "For another hour. Then Elias's men take her to the scrap yard in Everett to crush the evidence."
***