Chapter 6
Leaving Brennan in the dark, Cassian climbed the stone stairs to the estate’s private library on the ground floor.
The room was illuminated by sharp, bright morning light filtering through high leaded windows. Lavinia sat on a low velvet settee, flanked by two guards. She had washed the tears from her face, but she looked shattered, her elegant dinner dress wrinkled, her diamond necklace lying in pieces on the glass coffee table where a guard had cut it from her throat.
Cassian walked to the heavy mahogany desk and sat behind it. He did not invite her to sit closer. He did not look at her with anger. He looked at her with the cold detachment of a judge reviewing an execution docket.
“Speak, Lavinia,” Cassian said. “Give me one reason why your body shouldn't be found in the salt marshes behind the bay tonight.”
Lavinia’s knuckles whitened against her knees. “Because you made me this way, Cassian! You brought me into this house eight years ago, promised me a kingdom, and then left me to play nursemaid to an old woman who couldn't even remember my name!”
“My mother welcomed you with open arms,” Cassian said, leaning back in his leather chair. “She gave you her grandmother’s emeralds on our wedding day.”
“She treated me like an interloper!” Lavinia hissed, her voice rising in shrill desperation. “Every dinner was about her dead husband, about your legacy, about the family's ancient honor! You were never here! You were in Boston, in New York, in Chicago! Brennan was the only one who actually saw me! He offered me an exit!”
“An exit that required starving an old woman in a cellar?” Cassian asked softly.
“She wouldn't die!” Lavinia blurted out, the venom spilling past her lips before she could stop it. “She was seventy-nine years old, frail as paper, and she still held the veto power over the family trust! The lawyers told us that as long as Estelle was breathing, neither you nor Brennan could liquidate the northern piers without her consent! She was standing in the way of sixty million dollars!”
Cassian slowly opened the top drawer of his desk. He withdrew a sleek, matte-black automatic pistol, laying it gently on the green leather blotter. The heavy steel made a clean, sharp clack against the wood.
Lavinia stopped breathing. Her eyes widened, fixed on the weapon.
“You think sixty million dollars is worth more than a mother’s life, Lavinia?” Cassian asked, his baritone slicing through the dead air.
“Cassian, please…” she sobbed, sliding from the settee onto her knees, crawling toward the desk. “I made a mistake! I’ll sign whatever you want! I’ll surrender every cent, I’ll never speak to Brennan again! Just let me take my car and leave the state!”
Cassian picked up the phone on the desk and dialed a single digit.
“Frank,” Cassian commanded into the receiver. “Bring the notary from the holding room. And call Don Falco in Atlantic City. Tell him Cassian Morretti is calling in his debt.”
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He hung up the phone and looked down at his wife groveling on the Persian rug.
“You will leave this state, Lavinia,” Cassian said, every word carved from arctic stone. “But you will not leave in a car. And you will not leave with your name.”
