Chapter 2 - The Paper Trail of Pain
By midnight, Weston was sitting in the dimly lit study of his high-rise penthouse overlooking the dark horizon of Lake Michigan.
The glass of twenty-year-old scotch on his desk remained untouched. Spread out across the dark mahogany wood were three thin blue folders—the complete surveillance and background dossier Viktor had compiled over the past six hours.
Weston’s hands shook slightly as he opened the top folder.
Target: Wren Ashcombe (formerly Kade).
Address: 1412 West North Avenue, Apt 3B. Rent-controlled walk-up.
Employment: Late-night shift supervisor at a commercial bakery; freelance copy editor by day.
Financial Status: Acute stress. Multiple unpaid medical debts from high-risk pregnancy.
Attached to the second sheet were three birth certificates from a public hospital in Wayne County, Michigan.
Child 1: Leo Kade Ashcombe. Male. Weight: 4 lbs 2 oz.
Child 2: Maya Kade Ashcombe. Female. Weight: 3 lbs 11 oz.
Child 3: Sam Kade Ashcombe. Male. Weight: 3 lbs 8 oz.
"Kade," Weston whispered to the empty room, his thumb tracing the middle names printed on the coarse yellow paper. "She kept my name in theirs."
Viktor stood silently near the door, his hands clasped behind his back. "She gave birth via emergency C-section three years ago, boss. She spent three weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit alone. According to the medical records we pulled, there was no emergency contact listed on her intake forms. She paid the hospital bill off over three years using cash installments."
A tight, excruciating pain clamped around Weston’s chest. He remembered where he was three years ago: sitting in a smoke-filled boardroom in Milan, negotiating shipping routes with the Sicilian syndicate while Odalys Marchetti sat at his side, laughing at a joke his uncle had made.
While he was consolidating power and drinking five-hundred-dollar bottles of wine, Wren was laying on a cold hospital table in Detroit, having three premature babies cut out of her body with no one to hold her hand.
"What else?" Weston asked, his voice rough.
"The apartment building is substandard," Viktor reported flatly. "The front lock on the main door has been broken for two months. The radiator in her unit leaks. She works twelve hours a day between two jobs, leaving the kids with an elderly neighbor named Mrs. Gable during the morning hours."
Viktor hesitated, pulling a smaller photo from his pocket and placing it on the desk. "And there’s one more thing, sir. Don Marchetti’s men were spotted near her bakery three days ago."
Weston snapped his head up. "What?"
"Don Marchetti was running background checks on your old residences in Michigan last month," Viktor said quietly. "He wanted to make sure you had no hidden liabilities before committing the Marchetti family assets to your wedding. It’s possible he already knows about the children, boss."
Weston stood up so fast his leather chair crashed backward against the glass wall.
The Marchetti family did not handle "liabilities" through conversation. Don Marchetti was an old-school tyrant who believed that any threat to an alliance’s purity had to be quietly excised. If Marchetti suspected that Weston had three illegitimate heirs with a woman outside the syndicate, Wren and the triplets were walking targets.
"Get the cars," Weston said, grabbing his heavy overcoat from the rack.
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"Sir? It’s past midnight."
"I don't care if it's three in the morning," Weston growled, stepping around the desk, his gray eyes flashing with an unholy fire. "My family is living in a firetrap with a broken lock while Marchetti’s wolves are sniffing around the block. We’re moving them tonight."
