Chapter 8
By 5:00 AM, the first pale violet light of dawn was breaking over the Manhattan skyline across the bay.
Anselm stood on the edge of the wooden dock, watching the dark water lap against the pylons. A cold wind whipped the hem of his overcoat, carrying away the lingering smell of cordite.
Cassian walked up behind him, wiping his hands with a clean shop towel. "The pier is swept, Boss. The vehicles have been crushed at the salvage yard in Queens. The bodies are fifty miles out in international waters."
"And Chicago?" Anselm asked without turning around.
"Old Man Moretti sent an encrypted wire ten minutes ago," Cassian replied. "He disavowed Anthony completely. He apologized for the breach, offered two million in reparations for the burned warehouse, and promised to keep his people west of the Ohio River for the next ten years."
Anselm took a slow, deep breath of the salt air. "He took the deal because he knows he was weak. But the peace won't last forever. Blood remembers blood."
"What about Drusilla, Boss?" Cassian asked, his voice low. "She’s still in the cellar."
Anselm turned around, his jaw tight. "Bring her up to the library. It’s time to settle the family ledger."
Twenty minutes later, Anselm walked into the grand library of his estate.
The morning sun was beginning to spill through the tall arched windows, illuminating the rich mahogany bookshelves, the marble fireplace, and the heavy leather furniture.
Drusilla sat on the low couch, wrapped in a coarse gray blanket the guards had given her. Her face was haggard, hollowed out by twenty-four hours of terror and exhaustion. When Anselm entered, she flinched, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders.
"Anthony is dead," Anselm said, sitting behind his massive oak desk.
Drusilla closed her eyes, a single shudder passing through her frame. "And now it’s my turn."
"You would prefer a bullet, wouldn't you?" Anselm asked coldly. "Quick. Clean. An end to the shame of being stripped of the only name you ever cared about."
Drusilla opened her eyes, her lips trembling. "What are you going to do to me?"
Anselm slid an envelope across the desk. Inside was a one-way commercial airline ticket to Anchorage, Alaska, and a bank slip for fifty thousand dollars.
"There is a small cabin outside Fairbanks," Anselm said. "The deed is registered in the name of Paulie Vane’s daughter—Drusilla Vane. Every month, a local lawyer will disburse two thousand dollars to your account. If you stay there, if you work a quiet job, if you never speak the name Penrose again, you will live to be an old woman."
Drusilla stared at the envelope as if it were a coiled viper. "Alaska? You're exiling me to the wilderness? I am a Penrose! I was raised in this mansion!"
"You were a guest in this mansion," Anselm corrected her sharply. "A guest who overstayed her welcome by forty years and tried to murder the host's child."
He stood up, towering over the desk.
"If your feet touch the soil of New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut ever again, my men won't bring you to me. They will drop you into a concrete mixer and pour you into the harbor foundations. Do you understand me, Drusilla?"
Drusilla looked at the envelope, then looked up into the unyielding iron of Anselm’s face. Slowly, humiliatingly, she reached out her bruised hand, picked up the ticket, and tucked it into her blanket.
"I understand," she whispered.
"Take her to the airport," Anselm told the two guards standing by the door. "Make sure she boards the plane."
As the heavy library doors closed behind her, the room fell into a profound, peaceful silence.
May you like
Anselm stood by the window for several long moments, watching the morning light turn the frost on the lawn into shimmering diamonds. The dark night had ended, but he knew the underworld was an eternal wheel; one enemy falls, and three more begin sharpening their knives in the shadows.
A faint scuffle of soft slippers on the hardwood floor broke his reverie.
