Chapter 4 - The Viper’s Last Card
At three o’clock in the morning, the mansion was entirely dark, save for the dim emergency lights running along the baseboards of the long hallways.
In the master suite on the east floor, Genevieve Falcone was pacing across her bedroom like a caged panther.
Her silver dress lay discarded on the velvet couch, replaced by a dark silk robe. Her hair was pulled back into a messy knot, and her red lipstick was smeared around her mouth where she had chewed her lips in sheer, hysterical panic.
“He’s going to kill me,” she whispered to herself, staring at her reflection in the full-length mirror. “He’s going to kill me or throw me into the street without a dime.”
She ran her hands through her hair, her eyes wide and wild.
For five years, Genevieve had been the undisputed queen of the Providence underworld. Her father, Don Carmine Moretti, was the oldest mob boss in Boston, and her marriage to Adriano Falcone five years ago had settled a thirty-year blood feud between the two most powerful families in New England.
She had everything she had ever wanted: clothes, jewels, status, and the fear of every woman in Rhode Island.
And now, a filthy maid with a bastard child from West Virginia was going to strip it all away.
“No,” Genevieve spat softly, her terror morphing into a cold, toxic rage. “No. Adriano can’t touch me. If he touches me, my father will start a war that burns Providence to the ground.”
She hurried over to her vanity table, pulled a small silver key from inside a hollowed-out lipstick tube, and unlocked a secret compartment beneath the velvet drawer lining.
Inside sat a small, encrypted burner phone.
Her fingers flew across the keypad as she dialed a private number she had sworn never to call again.
The line rang three times before a deep, raspy voice answered on the fourth ring.
“What?” the voice grunted.
“It’s Genevieve,” she hissed into the receiver, keeping her voice as low as possible. “We have a disaster. The maid... the maid Rebecca... she’s Thomas’s widow.”
Silence fell over the line. For five long seconds, the only sound was the heavy breathing of the man on the other end.
“What did you say?” the man demanded, his tone dropping into a dangerous growl.
“You heard me!” Genevieve whispered hysterically. “Thomas had a child! A four-year-old girl! Adriano found out tonight! He knows the maid is Thomas’s family! He’s locked me in my room, and he’s re-opening everything!”
“Calm down, you stupid girl,” the man spat back. “Does Adriano know about the phone call three years ago? Does he know you were the one who gave Thomas’s address to the Boston hitmen?”
Genevieve’s breath hitched in her throat. “No... no, he doesn't know that yet. He thinks Boston did it on their own. But if he starts digging into Thomas’s life... if he brings in his investigators... he’s going to trace the wire transfer I used to pay off the West Virginia mechanic!”
“Then we fix it tonight,” the man said coldly.
“How?!” Genevieve cried quietly. “Adriano has armed guards outside my door! Dominic is sitting in the hallway!”
“Does the maid have the child with her in the West Wing?”
“Yes,” Genevieve whispered. “Adriano moved them into Thomas’s old suite.”
“Listen to me very carefully,” the man instructed, his voice dropping into a chill, calculating rhythm. “In my private safe in the basement garage, behind the electrical breaker box, there is a velvet pouch containing three ounces of pure morphine and an old diamond necklace stolen from the Moretti vault ten years ago.”
Genevieve’s eyes widened. “The stolen Moretti necklace? The one my father thought Adriano’s men took?”
“Precisely,” the voice replied. “You are going to slip out through the servant access panel behind your closet. You are going to plant that necklace and the morphine inside the maid’s luggage in the West Wing.”
Genevieve’s lips parted into a slow, wicked smile as she realized the plot.
“And then?” she whispered.
“And then,” the man sneered, “we inform Adriano that his precious innocent maid wasn't a victim at all. We tell him she’s a Moretti spy who came into his house eighteen months ago to steal his family jewels and poison his household. Before morning comes, Adriano will throw her out himself—or put a bullet in her head.”
Genevieve closed her eyes, letting out a long, relieved sigh. “You’re a monster, Uncle Carmine.”
“I’m a survivor,” the old man replied. “Now move. Before the sun comes up.”
Genevieve hung up the phone, slid the burner back into her robe pocket, and walked quietly toward her closet.
She didn't know that three floors below, in the dark monitoring room of the mansion’s security office, Adriano Falcone was sitting in a leather chair, wearing a pair of black headphones, watching her every movement on a high-definition infrared screen.
Beside him, Dominic held an audio recording device that had captured every single word of the phone call.
Adriano slowly took off his headphones and set them on the desk. His face was entirely devoid of emotion, but the veins on his neck were bulging like dark cords beneath his skin.
“Dominic,” Adriano said softly.
“Yes, Boss?”
“Let her take the necklace.”
Dominic blinked in surprise. “Boss? You’re going to let her put that stuff in Rebecca’s room?”
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Adriano stood up, pulling a heavy silver revolver from his shoulder holster and checking the cylinder with a cold, metallic click.
“Let her walk all the way to the trap,” Adriano whispered. “Because when a snake rears its head to strike, that’s the easiest moment to chop it off.”
