Chapter 3
Victoria pressed her back hard against the sofa cushions, her fingers trembling as she pulled the torn fabric of her emerald gown over her bruised knees. The arrogant, triumphant bride from ten minutes ago had dissolved into a shivering animal trapped in an inescapable spotlight.
“Rocco, please…” Victoria stammered, her American accent cracking into high-pitched hysteria. “It’s a misunderstanding! Noah was hiding beneath the tablecloth in the east solarium! He startled me! I thought he was playing with an expensive family heirloom, and when I tried to take it, the hearing aid slipped—"
“It didn't slip,” a small voice broke through the silence.
Rocco looked down. Maria had gently stepped beside him, carefully fitting the miniature flesh-toned backup hearing aid into Noah’s right ear. The toddler blinked against the sudden return of sound, his breathing steadying against his father’s chest.
“Tell me, Noah,” Rocco murmured softly, his baritone dropping into that rare, tender warmth reserved only for his son. “What did you hear in the solarium?”
Noah’s hazel eyes were wide and honest, pointing a small finger past Rocco’s shoulder toward the velvet sofa, then directly at the circle of bodyguards.
“Auntie Victoria told Uncle Marcus the tea was ready,” Noah whispered, his voice carrying clearly across the silent ballroom. “She said the medicine from the glass bottle was already inside Daddy’s glass. She said after Daddy went to sleep tonight, Uncle Marcus would sign the papers for the boats.”
A collective, horrified gasp rippled through the assembled capos.
Glasses rattled on silver trays as guests backed away from Marcus Caruso. In the Caruso syndicate, territorial disputes were settled with lead and blood; but poisoning the Don at his own engagement party, orchestrated with his bride-to-be, was high treason punishable by total erasure.
Rocco’s slate-gray eyes did not widen. His jaw merely locked into granite, a sharp ripple of muscle shifting beneath his neatly trimmed stubble.
“The boats,” Rocco repeated, his pauses slow, rhythmic, and lethal. “The deep-water berths at the Brooklyn terminals. The berths my father left solely to Noah.”
Marcus took an involuntary step back, his hands held high, sweat suddenly beading across his forehead beneath the bright white lights.
“Rocco, listen to reason!” Marcus yelled, his voice strained with desperate bravado. “You’re going to condemn your own blood over the babbling of a three-year-old with a broken hearing aid?! The kid doesn't even know what an offshore shipping berth is!”
“He doesn't,” Rocco agreed softly, his deep voice slicing through Marcus’s defense like a straight razor. “Which means someone taught him the word tonight.”
Rocco turned his gaze toward the head table.
Sitting beside his untouched dinner plate was an antique crystal tumbler filled with two fingers of amber scotch—poured personally by Victoria twenty minutes before the toasts began.
“Frank,” Rocco commanded without looking away from his cousin.
May you like
His lead enforcer stepped out of the perimeter. “Yes, Don Rocco.”
“Bring the doctor from the medical suite,” Rocco ordered. “And bring the chemical testing kit from my office. Let us see what medicine my bride prepared for our wedding night.”
