Chapter 8 - A Toast to the Dead
The sun dipped below the horizon, painting the Long Island sky in shades of bruised purple and burning orange. Inside the master dining hall, the crystal chandeliers blazed with a thousand points of light, illuminating a long mahogany table laid out with roast pheasant, silver cutlery, and crystal decanters of aged Barolo.
There was no wedding celebration. There was no bride. Camille Ashwood had fled her Manhattan penthouse the moment the federal indictments for corporate fraud and attempted murder were filed, leaving behind her forty-thousand-dollar lace dress hanging limply in an empty closet. Dean Foster and Dr. Julian Hale were currently residing in a high-security federal detention center in downtown Manhattan, awaiting an arraignment that would guarantee they never saw daylight again.
At the head of the table sat Massimo Rinaldi. He wasn't in a wheelchair. He sat upright in a high-backed leather chair, his legs stretched out firmly beneath the table, the muscles aching slightly with the sweet, hard pain of recovery.
To his right sat Carla Bennett, looking stunned and hesitant in a clean, elegant silk blouse Massimo had instructed Mrs. Gable to provide.
And sitting right beside Massimo, boosted on two thick velvet cushions so she could reach her plate, was three-year-old Nina, happily dipping a garlic breadstick into a small bowl of melted butter while her one-eyed stuffed rabbit sat propped up against the water goblet like a distinguished guest.
Massimo raised his crystal glass of Barolo, catching the amber light of the chandelier. The room was filled with his most loyal capos—Sal Caruso, Frank "The Blade" Vitale, and a dozen veteran soldiers who had bled for the Rinaldi name.
"To loyalty," Massimo said, his voice deep, resonant, and absolute. "Not the kind bought with money or sworn under the barrel of a gun. But the kind found in unexpected places."
He looked down at Nina, who raised her small glass of apple juice with a serious, grown-up expression and clinked it against his heavy crystal glass with a clear, ringing chime.
"To the secret treasure," Nina announced proudly, quoting her own private mythology.
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The entire room of hardened, dangerous men erupted into warm, booming laughter—the first genuine laughter heard in the Rinaldi mansion in six long years. Sal Caruso raised his glass high. "To the boss, and the youngest doctor in New York!"
Carla wiped a stray tear from her cheek, her heart overflowing with a peace she hadn't felt since the day her husband died. The shadows that had haunted the estate for half a year had been swept clean by a three-year-old child with a basin of warm water and a white pill found on a crimson carpet.
