Chapter 4 – The Traitor’s Price

The sound of the shotguns racking echoed like a death knell in the beautiful, brightly lit restaurant.

Matteo scrambled backward on his hands and knees, scrambling away from Don Rossi until his back hit the polished mahogany base of the hostess stand.

“It’s a lie!” Matteo screamed, pointing a trembling finger at Clara. “She’s lying! My own daughter is lying to protect her mother! Don Rossi, you know me! I’ve been loyal for thirty years!”

Rossi didn’t say a word. He held out his hand.

Clara didn’t hesitate. She walked forward and placed the small black ledger into the Godfather’s palm.

Rossi opened the book. The restaurant was completely silent as the old man flipped through the pages. The only sound was the soft rustle of paper and the heavy, ragged breathing of my husband.

Rossi stopped on a page near the middle. He traced a line of numbers with his thick, calloused finger.

When he finally looked up, his eyes were as cold as a Chicago winter.

“Route 44,” Rossi read aloud, his voice dangerously quiet. “The shipping lane we lost to the Volkov family in 2018. The lane that cost my nephew his life in the turf war. You sold them the schedule, Matteo.”

Matteo squeezed his eyes shut and began to sob. A pathetic, hollow sound.

“They threatened me,” Matteo wept. “The Russians had pictures of me. They said they would tell the commission. I had to pay them off!”

“You sold our blood to save your pride,” Rossi said, closing the ledger with a heavy thud.

Answer one. Matteo’s missing five million hadn’t just gone to Sabrina’s restaurant. It had gone to paying off blackmail to rival families because his empire of lies was crumbling from every side.

Rossi looked at me.

“This ledger is worth far more than the five million he owes me, Elena. This exposes the rats in my own house.” Rossi slipped the book into his camel-hair coat. “You have bought your life today. And your daughter’s.”

I let out a shaky breath, feeling the tension drain from my shoulders.

“But the blonde girl,” Rossi said, turning his gaze toward Sabrina. “She is a witness to commission business. She belongs to me now.”

Sabrina let out a terrified scream and tried to run toward the back door.

One of Rossi’s enforcers moved faster than a man his size should be able to. He grabbed Sabrina by her blonde hair, yanking her backward and throwing her to the hardwood floor.

“No!” I shouted, stepping forward.

Rossi held up a hand, stopping me in my tracks.

“Do not push your luck, Elena. She is the mistress of a traitor. She knows about the money. She dies with him.”

I looked down at Sabrina. The young woman in the red dress was curled on the floor, weeping, her perfect makeup ruined. She had taken my dream, yes. She had slept with my husband.

But she didn’t know he was a murderer. She didn’t know he was mobbed up. She was twenty-six years old—two years younger than my own daughter. She was just a girl who had been manipulated by a master liar.

I thought of the thirty-one years I had spent surviving Matteo’s manipulation. I wouldn’t let another woman die for his sins.

“She doesn’t know anything, Don Rossi,” I said, my voice hardening. “She thought he was a real estate developer.”

“Ignorance is not an excuse for breathing my air,” Rossi replied coldly.

“I have the rest of the ledger,” I lied.

The room went still again.

Clara looked at me, her eyes wide with shock, but she kept her mouth shut.

Rossi narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, the rest of the ledger?”

“Matteo kept a second book,” I said, forcing myself to maintain eye contact with the most dangerous man in Chicago. “The one you have only covers the shipping routes up to 2021. I have the book that covers the last three years. The years he was working directly with the Russians to launder their money through his construction sites.”

Rossi stepped closer to me. I could smell the sharp scent of cigar smoke and expensive cologne on him.

“And where is this second book, Elena?”

I pointed to the large, antique copper pot sitting on the stove in the open kitchen. My mother’s pot.

“It’s in the false bottom of that pot,” I said. “Let Sabrina walk out that door, and I’ll give it to you. If you kill her, I will take the location of the backup files to my grave.”

Matteo looked up from the floor, his face twisted in utter confusion. “There is no second book! She’s bluffing! Rossi, she’s lying to you!”

Rossi ignored him. He looked at the copper pot, then at Sabrina on the floor, and finally back at me.

“You are risking your life for the woman who slept with your husband?” Rossi asked, genuine curiosity in his voice.

“I am saving a girl from a monster,” I said firmly. “We women have to clean up the messes you men leave behind.”

Rossi stared at me for a long, tense moment.

Then, a slow, grudging smile spread across his weathered face.

“Your father was a proud man, Elena. He would be proud of you today.”

Rossi nodded to his enforcer. The massive man released Sabrina’s hair and stepped back.

“Go,” Rossi commanded.

Sabrina scrambled to her feet. She looked at me, tears streaming down her bruised face.

“Thank you,” Sabrina whispered.

“Run,” I said softly. “And never come back to Chicago.”

Sabrina didn’t hesitate. She ran out the front doors, disappearing into the dark city night.

Rossi turned to me. “The book, Elena.”

I walked into the open kitchen. I reached for the heavy copper pot.

But as my fingers brushed the warm metal, a sudden, blinding realization hit me.

Open two.

If my father’s restaurant burned down completely in 1993, how did Matteo give me my mother’s copper pot as a “salvaged gift” three days later?

The pot hadn’t survived the fire.

Because it was never in the fire. Matteo had taken it out before he struck the match.

I gripped the handle of the pot, my knuckles turning white.

I lifted the heavy copper pot off the stove. I turned toward Rossi.

“Catch,” I said.

And I threw the heavy cast-iron pot directly through the massive, arched glass window at the front of the restaurant.

The glass shattered with an explosive crash, raining down onto the street.

Alarms instantly began blaring, screaming through the night air.

Rossi stepped back, shielding his face from the glass.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Rossi roared over the alarms.

“There is no second book!” I shouted, grabbing Clara’s hand. “The police will be here in two minutes! You can kill us and get caught, or you can take Matteo and run!”

Rossi looked at the shattered window, then at the approaching wail of police sirens in the distance.

He looked at me, a mixture of absolute fury and profound respect in his eyes.

“You are a dangerous woman, Elena Castellano,” Rossi said.

He nodded to his men.

They grabbed Matteo by his arms, dragging him kicking and screaming toward the back exit.

“Elena! Elena, please! Don’t let them take me!” Matteo shrieked, his shoes dragging across the beautiful hardwood floor.

I stood in the center of the restaurant, watching the man who had stolen my life disappear into the dark alley.

“Goodbye, Matteo,” I whispered.

TITLE: The Smell of Gasoline

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