Chapter 3
The wedding guests were sent home before sunset.
No explanation was given beyond a family emergency.
It did not matter.
By nightfall, Chicago society had already begun inventing its own.
Bianca left the estate with Damien.
Her dress was still wet at the bottom.
Her engagement ring remained on her finger.
Alessandro did not ask for it back.
Not yet.
His attention had moved to the security office.
Daniel Shaw stood beside a wall of monitors while Alessandro reviewed every guard assignment for the wedding.
Seven names had been added during the previous ten days.
Daniel had approved none of them.
“Who authorized these?”
Daniel pointed toward the digital records.
“Damien.”
“He has no authority to hire security.”
“He said you gave it to him for the wedding.”
“I didn’t.”
Daniel looked uncomfortable.
“I should’ve called you.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t because…”
“Because Damien said he spoke for me.”
Daniel nodded.
That phrase followed Alessandro through the next hour.
He spoke for me.
Damien had used it with staff.
Vendors.
Drivers.
Security.
Perhaps for years.
Alessandro had permitted it because Damien had been useful.
The Moretti family had worked beside the Rizzanos for almost a decade. Damien handled difficult negotiations, managed contractors, and knew which people could be trusted.
Or Alessandro had believed he did.
Daniel opened another screen.
Three of the newly added guards had accessed areas unrelated to the wedding.
The private garage.
The executive office wing.
The basement records room.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Alessandro leaned closer.
One name bothered him.
Ethan Cole.
“Find him.”
Daniel made three calls.
No answer.
The temporary guard had left the estate forty minutes after the kitchen incident.
His issued radio sat abandoned in a service locker.
Upstairs, Livia finally fell asleep beside Margaret.
Alessandro stood outside her bedroom for several minutes.
Rosalie approached quietly.
“She asked for you.”
“I know.”
“You should go in.”
Alessandro looked at her.
“You’re giving me parenting advice now?”
Rosalie immediately lowered her eyes.
There it was again.
Fear.
He regretted the sentence before she could apologize.
“Rosalie.”
She stopped.
“You’re allowed to disagree with me.”
She looked unconvinced.
Alessandro entered Livia’s room.
His daughter was not asleep after all.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Is Rosalie in trouble?”
“No.”
“Bianca said you’d fire her.”
“I’m not firing her.”
Livia relaxed.
Then Alessandro asked the question he had been avoiding.
“What did Bianca do to you before the kitchen?”
Livia pulled the blanket beneath her chin.
“She said after the wedding everything would change.”
“What would change?”
“She said I wouldn’t follow you everywhere anymore.”
Alessandro sat slowly on the edge of the bed.
“What else?”
Livia looked confused.
“She said Uncle Damien would help teach everybody the new rules.”
Alessandro stared at his daughter.
May you like
The wedding had been canceled because of what Bianca did in fifteen seconds.
But whatever Damien had planned had begun much earlier.
