Chapter 3

The better part of a year went by like that.

Without that marriage dragging on me, things actually got quieter. Days, I handled the family's books. Nights, I kept an eye on the smuggling routes up north. Busy, sure—but the kind of busy that sat right with me.

Don Emilio trusted me more by the week. I'd closed the deal on the European arms supply and untangled a few smuggling routes up north that had gone sideways.

So he just handed me the family's most important operation—the whole money-laundering network. At meetings, I could see the way the old-timers looked at me start to change.

Funny thing. Once I was rid of Dario, even my luck seemed to turn.

As for Dario, he'd spent those months turning into the laughingstock of everyone in the business.

Word that he "couldn't get it up anymore" wouldn't stay buried. That kind of thing—the more guns a man keeps around him, the harder it is to keep quiet. Bodyguards, doctors, nurses: one loose mouth and it was all over town.

The higher-ups had all caught wind of it. And instead of lying low, he got louder, like he could drown out the shame by turning up the volume.

He'd pinned everything he had on Bianca's belly.

All through the pregnancy, every checkup, he'd drop the ultrasound pics in the family group chat, the captions getting cheesier each time. "My boy's built solid—he'll be the best shot in the family one day." "Ordered the heir a crib today. Solid gold. Nothing less is good enough for him."

When the photo of the two of them in the nursery, arms around each other, came across my screen, a laugh slipped out before I could stop it. The bastard really did commit to the act.

"It gets dumber." Gemma kicked the door open, tossed a stack of files onto my desk, and dropped into the couch, swinging her legs up. "Guess what he's gone and done now."

"Couldn't begin to guess." I poured her a coffee too. "Just tell me."

"He signed the most profitable casino on the South Side straight over to Bianca." Gemma picked up the coffee and blew on it, taking her time. "And like that wasn't enough, he dropped ten million on an estate out on Long Island. The deed? Her name. Just hers."

My hand paused over the coffee. "Paid in full?"

"In full." She rolled her eyes. "That steel rod must've taken a chunk of his brain along with the rest. Acts like one kid means he can sleep easy for good. I'm telling you, the man walks around like he wants to hold that baby over his head for the whole city to see."

I let out a dry laugh. Dario wasn't stupid—he was scared. A boss who'd lost his equipment down there, with no "heir" to prop him up, would get swallowed alive by his own foot soldiers in no time.

He wasn't being generous. He was buying his life with turf.

"Let him buy." I opened the stack of files. "The more he sinks into it, the louder the crash when it comes."

Inside was a pile of spending records and a few surveillance shots. In one, Bianca—big and pregnant—stood outside some out-of-the-way motel, locked in a kiss with a man covered in tattoos.

I gave it a look, slid the photo out, and laid it on the desk. "Nice work."

"Obviously." Gemma raised an eyebrow, smug. "There's no dirt in this city I can't dig up. His name's Vince—a low-level boss with the Vipers over on the West Side, did a two-year stretch inside. Here's the part that matters: before Bianca ever got with Dario, she was Vince's girl."

She reached out a finger and tapped the belly of the woman in the photo.

"I ran the dates. She got pregnant right around the first week Vince made bail. Dario was still out there bragging to everyone about becoming a daddy."

I closed the file and tapped a finger lightly on the cover. Bianca was a plant from the Vipers, carrying another man's kid, who'd reeled in a Dario who happened to be sterile now—and came with houses and turf attached.

The pieces were just about all in place. One left.

"Stay on them," I said. "Especially the days around the birth. I want a paternity test—the more official, the bigger the stamp on it, the better."

Gemma's eyes lit up, and she sat up straight on the couch. "You should've said so sooner." She knocked back the rest of her coffee and stood. "This kind of job? I've got it covered."