Chapter 7 - Celeste’s Desperation
The Vault smelled of expensive cigars, spilled bourbon, and sweat.
The basement had been converted into an illegal high-stakes casino: three roulette wheels spun beneath green baize shades, craps tables were crowded with men in wrinkled designer shirts, and armed guards in dark vests stood stationed at every corner of the room.
Nobody looked twice at me. In a place like this, beautiful women in expensive dresses were either trophies or predators. I walked with the slow, predatory grace Dominic had displayed in the Obsidian Room, my chin high, my eyes cutting through the smoke like searchlights.
Behind the third roulette table was a heavy oak door flanked by a single guard holding a silenced submachine gun beneath a leather jacket.
I didn't wait for him to challenge me.
I held up the silver falcon ring, narrowed my eyes, and muttered a single, venomous word: *"Vance."*
The guard blinked, recognized the house crest of the Genoese syndicate, and stepped aside, knocking twice on the oak door before turning the brass handle.
I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The backroom was small, paneled in dark wood, furnished with a green leather card table and a wall of surveillance monitors. Sitting at the table was Arthur Vance.
The high-powered senior partner of Vance, Sterling & Croft looked like a man who had already been shoved into an open grave. His silk tie was undone, his expensive shirt drenched in sweat at the armpits. On the table before him sat a half-empty bottle of Glenfiddich, an open titanium laptop displaying a series of encrypted bank transfer codes, and a heavy leather courier bag packed with files.
Standing beside him was not a mobster.
It was Celeste Rinaldi.
She had changed out of her emerald dinner gown into a sharp black cashmere trench coat. Her platinum hair was disheveled, her mascara slightly smeared around her pale blue eyes. She was pacing the small room like a caged hyena, clutching a burner phone to her ear.
"...I don't care about the coast guard!" Celeste was hissing into the phone. "Tell Matteo to move the ships out of international waters! If Dominic’s security teams lock down the terminals before the board meets—"
She stopped dead.
The door swung shut behind me with a soft, definitive *click*.
Celeste turned, her eyes landing on me.
For three seconds, her brain refused to process the image. She saw the midnight-blue YSL dress, the eight-carat diamond choker, the platinum pins in my sculpted chignon.
Then, her gaze hit my face.
The color drained from Celeste’s cheeks with such violent speed I thought she was going to faint. Her hand dropped, the burner phone clattering onto the green felt of the card table.
"You," Celeste choked out, her voice a strangled whisper. "The... the waitress."
Vance jerked his head up, his spectacles sliding down his sweating nose. "What? Who is this?"
"It’s her!" Celeste shrieked, backing away until her spine hit the wall of surveillance monitors. "The girl from the Obsidian Room! The one who ruined the contract!"
I didn't flinch. I took two slow, deliberate steps forward, the four-inch heels clicking sharply against the hardwood floor.
"Good evening, Madame Rinaldi," I said, my voice smooth, velvet-soft, and terrifyingly calm. "Mr. Vance. You really should be more careful with your courier logistics. Leaving an open communications frequency on the Newark transport was an amateur mistake."
Vance scrambled to his feet, knocking his chair backward. "How did you get in here? Where are the guards? Tommy! Marco!"
"Tommy and Marco think I'm Matteo Falco’s personal courier," I said, resting my hand casually on the back of an empty leather chair. "And as for the guards outside... let’s just say Dominic’s men have a much higher hourly rate than yours."
The name *Dominic* hit the room like a detonated pipe bomb.
Celeste’s eyes bulged with pure, hysterical madness. "Dominic is dead! He drank the wine! Luc confirmed the decanter was poured! He’s in a morgue!"
"Dominic didn't drink the wine, Celeste," I said, tilting my head slightly, letting a cold, pitying smile touch my lips. "The drop fell on the silver. You remember what happens to silver when it touches *La Nebbia*, don't you? Your uncle’s chemists in Genoa really should have refined the sulfur compounds. It ruins the finish on fine tableware."
Vance let out a low, pathetic moan, his knees buckling. He collapsed back against the table, his trembling hands knocking over the whiskey bottle. The amber liquid spilled across the green felt, soaking into the edges of the leather courier bag.
"He knows," Vance whined, grabbing his hair with both hands. "He knows everything. Oh God, he’s going to feed us to the feds. He’s going to bury us under the prison."
"Shut up, Arthur!" Celeste screamed, her aristocratic composure completely shattering into raw, feral desperation. She lunged across the table, snatching a small, nickel-plated .38 revolver from the open courier bag.
She pointed the barrel directly at my chest.
Her hands were shaking violently, the metal catching the harsh light of the overhead fluorescent tube.
"You ruined everything," Celeste whispered, her teeth bared in an ugly, animal snarl. "Seven years. Seven years I spent enduring that cold, arrogant bastard of a father, and then five years watching his sociopathic son treat me like a decorative parasite! That company was mine! The Falco family built the shipping lines before the Rinaldis ever set foot on a cargo dock!"
"Your family built a criminal enterprise on extortion and murder," I said, not taking a single step back, my voice completely steady. In my ear, through the micro-transmitter, I could hear the faint, steady rhythm of Dominic’s breathing. He was close. Very close.
"And you," Celeste hissed, cocking the hammer of the revolver with a sharp, mechanical *click*. "A pathetic, penniless little gutter rat who carried bread baskets. You think you can wear Rinaldi diamonds and play God? I'm going to put a bullet through that pretty throat, and then I'm going to take the morning flight to Zurich."
"Shoot her, Celeste!" Vance cried, hyperventilating. "Shoot her and let's go!"
I looked directly into the dark bore of the barrel.
For the first time in my life, I felt no fear. The girl who had trembled over an eviction notice in Astoria was dead. In her place stood a woman who had looked into the abyss of wealth, power, and treachery—and realized that monsters were just flesh and bone, easily broken if you knew where to strike.
"You can shoot me, Celeste," I said softly, my eyes locking onto hers with hypnotic intensity. "But you might want to look at the surveillance monitor behind your left shoulder first."
Celeste hesitated, her finger trembling against the trigger. "You're lying. You're trying to distract me—"
"Camera four," I whispered. "The corridor."
Celeste’s eyes flicked involuntarily toward the monitor bank.
On camera four, the two guards who had been standing outside the door were already lying face-down on the concrete floor, completely motionless.
Standing in the center of the frame, holding a suppressed tactical pistol at the low-ready, was Dominic Rinaldi.
Before Celeste could scream, the heavy oak door didn't open.
It exploded inward.
The wood shattered around the deadbolt with the concussive force of a battering ram. Gabe breached the threshold first, his massive frame low, driving directly into Vance, sweeping the terrified lawyer off his feet and pinning him to the floor in a flurry of broken glass and whiskey.
Celeste swung the revolver toward the door.
*Drop to the floor,* Dominic had told me.
I didn't drop.
I lunged forward, closing the three feet between us, my hands shooting out with all the adrenaline-fueled force in my body. I caught Celeste’s right wrist with both hands, twisting it violently downward against the edge of the card table.
The gun discharged with a deafening, concussive *BANG*.
The bullet tore through the green felt, shattering the laptop screen into a spray of smoking liquid crystal. Celeste shrieked in agony as the bone in her wrist gave way with a sickening *snap*. The nickel-plated revolver clattered harmlessly to the floor.
Before she could strike me with her left hand, a long, steel-muscled arm shot past my shoulder.
Dominic caught Celeste by the throat, lifting her three inches off the floor, slamming her back against the wall of surveillance monitors. The screens shattered behind her head in a shower of blue sparks.
"Touch her again," Dominic whispered, his voice vibrating with a demonic, unholy fury that made the air in the small room freeze, "and I will tear your limbs from your torso with my bare hands."
Celeste clawed frantically at his fingers, her face turning purple, her legs kicking uselessly in the air.
"Dominic," I said, my voice breathless, reaching out and touching his arm. "Don't. Not like this. Let the law take her."
Dominic’s hazel eyes were black with bloodlust. For one terrifying second, I thought he was going to crush her trachea right in front of me.
Then, he looked at my hand on his sleeve.
He looked at my face, flushed with adrenaline, unhurt.
Slowly, Dominic opened his fingers.
Celeste dropped to the floor in a crumpled, weeping heap of cashmere and shattered glass, clutching her broken wrist, gasping for air like a dying fish.
Dominic didn't look at her again. He turned toward me, his hands instantly coming up to frame my face, his thumbs sweeping across my cheeks, checking for injuries, his breathing ragged and uneven.
"Are you hit?" he demanded, his voice thick with raw, terrified emotion. "Did the bullet touch you?"
"I'm fine," I whispered, leaning into the warmth of his hands, my body beginning to tremble as the shock set in. "I'm fine, Dominic. We have the files. We have Vance."
Dominic pulled me against his chest, wrapping his arms around me with a crushing, possessive intensity that blocked out the entire world. I buried my face in his neck, breathing in the scent of him, feeling the wild, thunderous beat of his heart against my ribs.
"You insane, magnificent girl," he murmured into my hair, his lips brushing against my temple. "I told you to drop."
"I don't take orders well, Mr. Rinaldi," I whispered against his skin.
A low, breathless laugh shook his chest. "I'm beginning to notice that."
Behind us, Gabe hauled Vance upright by the scruff of his neck, tossing the heavy leather courier bag to Dominic’s feet.
"Five-forty-five AM, boss," Gabe said, checking his watch. "The board meets in two hours and fifteen minutes."
Dominic slowly released me, though his hand remained firmly linked with mine, his fingers laced through mine like steel wire.
He looked down at Celeste, weeping on the floor, and Vance, shivering in Gabe’s grip.
May you like
"Pack them in the transport," Dominic commanded, his voice cold, merciless, and completely restored to executive supremacy. "We have a shareholder meeting to attend."
***
