Chapter 6 - The Unwelcome Guest
The peace at the private pavilion didn't last through the week. The Moretti family was an empire, and an empire always has rivals waiting for a crack in the armor.
On Thursday afternoon, while Dante was at a shipping council meeting at the docks, the elevator doors to the sixteenth floor slid open to reveal a man wearing an expensive silk suit and a silver cane. It was Victor Bianchi—not the doctor, but his cousin, a regional captain from the North Side syndicate who had been trying to muscling into Dante’s port operations for years.
Victor walked down the hallway with three armed guards, his eyes scanning the private rooms until he spotted Emma sitting on the terrace outside her mother's suite.
"Well, well," Victor purred, leaning his hands on his silver cane as he stepped into the room. "So this is where the great Dante Moretti has been spending his capital. I thought he was restructuring the union funds, but it turns out he’s just playing savior to a South Side waitress."
Emma stood up instantly, her hand moving defensively over her ribs. "Who are you? This is a private medical wing. You need to leave."
"Private for Moretti, maybe," Victor laughed, a greasy, unpleasant sound. He stepped closer, his eyes raking over her face with a predatory curiosity. "You’re pretty enough, I suppose. But a little thin for a billionaire’s taste. Tell me, sweetheart... what did you give him to make him turn the entire city upside down for you? He ruined the Vance family in a single night. He broke the precinct pipeline. That cost my associates a lot of money."
Before Emma could answer, the glass door to the terrace smashed inward.
Leo entered like a freight train, his weapon drawn and aimed directly at Victor’s forehead before the North Side guards could even reach under their jackets.
"Step back from the lady, Victor," Leo hissed, his thumb clicking the safety off his Glock. "You're six inches away from a closed-casket funeral."
Victor’s guards instantly pulled their guns, creating a Mexican standoff in the middle of the oncology ward. Clara stirred in her bed, her monitors beginning to beep rapidly as her heart rate spiked from the tension.
"Don't do anything stupid, Leo," Victor said, though his smirk had vanished. "I’m an invited guest of the hospital board. I have a right to be here."
"You have a right to die if you don't turn around," a cold, metallic voice rang out from the main corridor.
Dante Moretti walked through the wreckage of the glass door. He wasn't wearing his sweater anymore; he was back in his midnight-black suit, his tie perfectly knotted, his eyes completely void of humanity. He carried a heavy silver revolver in his right hand, held loosely at his side.
The three North Side guards looked at Dante, and the collective courage in the room evaporated. They knew the legends. They knew Dante didn't negotiate in hospitals.
"Victor," Dante said, his voice dropping into that quiet, terrible register. "You have five seconds to clear your men out of my sight. If I see your face on this floor when the clock strikes four, I will personally throw you off this terrace and watch you paint the pavement on Michigan Avenue."
Victor swallowed hard, his knuckles whitening around his cane. He looked at Dante, then at Leo, then back at Emma. He realized then that this wasn't a casual corporate distraction. Dante had anchored himself to this girl, and any attempt to touch her would result in an all-out war that the North Side wasn't prepared to win.
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"We’ll talk at the council meeting, Moretti," Victor muttered, turning around and gesturing for his men to lower their weapons. "This isn't business. This is personal. And personal makes you weak."
"Try me," Dante said.
