Chapter 2 - The Trap Beneath the Numbers
Vittorio Moretti did not blink.
The silence in my cramped, peeling-wallpaper apartment stretched so thin you could hear the water dripping from the rusted kitchen pipes three floors up. My unpaid electricity bill lay face-up on the coffee table beside an eviction notice, mocking me.
“You’re wondering what the catch is, Miss Miller,” Vittorio said, his voice a smooth, gravelly baritone that carried decades of absolute authority. He didn't sit down. He stood tall in my living room, looking entirely out of place in his custom-tailored Brioni suit amid my milk-crate bookshelves and threadbare rug.
“People like you don’t hand out ten thousand dollars a week for babysitting,” I said, keeping my hands steady as I folded my arms across my chest. “Even if your son acts like a spoiled toddler with a trust fund and a temper.”
Vittorio’s thin lips twitched upward into a humorless smile. “Dawson is a volatile asset, Clara. Since his mother passed away two years ago, his temper has cost this family millions in property damage, lawsuits, and broken alliances. He needs someone who isn't afraid of him. Someone who won't flinch when he smashes a bottle. Last night, you didn't flinch. You poured ice water over his head.”
“He was destroying my section,” I shot back. “I have standards.”
“Clearly,” Vittorio replied, his eyes narrowing slightly as he took a slow step closer. He reached into his coat pocket and slid a second piece of paper across the table, right on top of my eviction notice.
It was a bank ledger bearing my father’s name. Arthur Miller.
My breath hitched.
“Sixty-eight thousand dollars,” Vittorio read aloud, his voice dropping an octave. “Owed to the Syndicate’s northern docks division. Interest is compounding weekly. By Friday, the enforcers were planning to break his knees, take his workshop, and put him in a pine box. Unless, of course, someone clears the ledger.”
Cold sweat broke out across the back of my neck. I looked from the paper up to Vittorio’s unblinking eyes. “How do you know about that?”
“In Chicago, Clara, I know what shoes you’re wearing before you lace them up,” Vittorio said smoothly. “Here is the trap, since you asked so politely. The contract isn't just for ten thousand dollars a week and a luxury penthouse on Michigan Avenue. The contract binds you to the Moretti household for one full year. You eat where he eats, you sleep where he sleeps, and you keep him breathing. If Dawson dies, or if you walk away before the year is up—”
He paused, letting the silence do the heavy lifting.
“—the debt rolls back onto your father. And unlike me, my northern capos don’t offer payment plans.”
My stomach dropped into a bottomless pit. I was trapped. It wasn't an offer; it was a cage disguised as a golden ticket. If I said no, my father died in a gutter by the weekend. If I said yes, I was chaining myself to Chicago’s most dangerous, unhinged mafia heir.
I looked down at the contract. My pen lay right beside it, cheap and plastic.
May you like
“Give me the pen,” I whispered.
Vittorio’s smile finally reached his cold eyes. He placed the heavy gold fountain pen into my hand. “Welcome to the family, Clara. Pack your bags. My car is waiting downstairs.”
