Chapter 7 - The Enforcer’s Warning
The morning sun washed over the penthouse in a golden haze, but the warmth of the previous night was shattered before breakfast was even poured.
Ding-dong.
The private elevator chime echoed through the silent suite.
I was sitting at the kitchen island in one of Dawson’s oversized black cotton shirts when the chime rang. Dawson, wearing only dark lounge pants, stepped out of the master suite, his gun already sliding into his hand with practiced reflex.
“Stay behind the island,” Dawson ordered, his voice dropping into its lethal mobster register.
He strode to the double doors and yanked them open.
It wasn't an assassin.
It was Uncle Franco—Vittorio’s younger brother and the ruthless chief enforcer of the Moretti syndicate. Franco was a man in his late fifties with cold, dead eyes, a salt-and-pepper mustache, and a cane topped with a silver wolf’s head that doubled as a weapon.
“Put the iron away, boy,” Franco grunted, pushing past Dawson without an invitation, his heavy boots clicking against the marble floor. “I’m not here to shoot you. I’m here to give you some family advice.”
Franco’s cold eyes drifted across the penthouse until they landed on me sitting by the kitchen island. A greasy, unpleasant smile spread across his face.
“Ah,” Franco purred, leaning heavily on his silver-headed cane. “The waitress. I hear you’ve been keeping our volatile prince on a very short leash. Tell me, Clara, do you really think you’re the first stray Dawson brought home to play house with?”
Dawson closed the front door with a heavy, ominous click and stalked up behind his uncle like a panther. “Watch your mouth, Franco. She’s not a stray.”
“She’s a distraction,” Franco snapped, turning his dead eyes back to Dawson. “And distractions get people killed in our line of work. Rossi is already rallying the South Side capos. They think the Morettis are going soft because the heir is spending his nights playing domestic with a debtor’s daughter.”
Franco turned back to me, pointing the silver tip of his cane toward my chest.
“Listen to me, girl,” Franco said, his voice dropping into a harsh, venomous threat. “Your father’s debt was cleared, yes. But you think Vittorio is paying you ten thousand a week out of the goodness of his heart? You’re a pawn on a chessboard. The moment you become a liability, I won’t just fire you. I’ll make sure you vanish so thoroughly your own father won't recognize your bones.”
Before Franco could finish his sentence, Dawson moved with terrifying speed.
He grabbed the silver-headed cane, wrenching it out of Franco’s grip with a violent yank, and slammed the heavy metal shaft against the marble floor right between the older man’s boots.
“If you ever speak to her like that again, Franco,” Dawson whispered, his face inches from his uncle’s, his dark eyes blazing with absolute, unhinged fury, “cane or no cane, I will throw you off this balcony myself. Get out of my penthouse.”
Franco stared at his nephew for a long, frozen second. He didn't look scared; he looked like a plotting spider caught in a web of its own making.
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“You’re letting a girl blind you, Dawson,” Franco muttered, turning slowly toward the elevator. “And it’s going to cost us all everything.”
The elevator doors closed, taking the old enforcer down, but the poison he left behind lingered in the air like smoke.
