Chapter 8 - The Shadow of Camila
Eleanor Moretti turned to leave, but stopped near the frosted glass doors, looking back over her shoulder at Dante.
“The Serrano family is angry, Dante,” Eleanor warned quietly. “Camila’s father, Victor Serrano, called me twenty minutes ago. He feels publicly humiliated by your refusal to announce the engagement. Victor is a proud man, and proud men do foolish things when their honor is damaged.”
“Victor Serrano can feel whatever he pleases,” Dante said dismissively. “My shipping contracts with his ports are legal and binding. If he tries to breach them, I will ruin his firm before the market opens on Monday.”
“Just be careful,” Eleanor said, her eyes drifting back to Norah for a fraction of a second. “Camila is not like her father. She does not care about shipping contracts or legal agreements. She cares about status. And you just stripped her of the only thing she has wanted for four years.”
Eleanor walked out, accompanied by her bodyguards, the frosted doors sealing shut behind her.
Dante turned to Norah, reaching out to stroke her cheek. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” Norah said, letting out a breath she felt like she had been holding for an hour. “Your mother is... terrifying.”
“She’s protective,” Dante corrected gently, a rare, faint smile appearing on his lips. “And she just realized that she cannot force me to marry Camila Serrano.”
For the next four days, a strange, beautiful peace settled over the top floor of Moretti Tower.
Norah spent her mornings writing in the sunlit library, her laptop filling with tens of thousands of words as her creative spirit soared free from fear. Dante spent his afternoons working beside her, occasionally reaching across the desk to hold her hand, to kiss her cheek, or to pull her into his lap when his intense, possessive need for her touch overwhelmed his business calls.
At night, they slept together in the massive king-sized bed on floor fifty-one. Dante held her tightly against his chest all night long, his broad arms wrapped around her as if he feared she might vanish into thin air if he let go. They didn't hurry into physical completion; Dante savored every quiet touch, every breath, every slow kiss, worshipping her body with a reverence that made Norah feel like a holy relic.
He bought her clothes, brought her rare manuscripts, and paid off her aunt Lydia’s remaining floral debts in Indiana, freeing her entire family from financial ruin without asking for anything in return.
Norah was falling deeply, irrevocably in love with the dangerous Don of Chicago.
However, below the serene heights of the fifty-first floor, dark storm clouds were gathering.
In a private, soundproof dining room at the elite Drake Hotel, Camila Serrano sat across from a dark-haired man in a leather jacket.
The man was Lorenzo Rizzio—a high-ranking soldier from the ousted Genovese faction that Dante Moretti had crushed three years ago during the Outfit war. Lorenzo had spent three years hiding in the shadows, waiting for a chance to strike at the Moretti dynasty.
“Are you certain about this, Camila?” Lorenzo asked in a low, gravelly whisper, swirling the red wine in his glass. “If Dante finds out we are talking, he will put a bullet in both our heads.”
“Dante is distracted,” Camila spat, her eyes burning with a dark, insane hatred. “He has put his security down for a twenty-four-year-old temp maid named Norah Hail. She lives in his penthouse.”
“A maid?” Lorenzo chuckled darkly. “The untouchable Don Moretti brought a maid into his fortress?”
“She is his flaw, Lorenzo,” Camila hissed, leaning across the table, her fingernails digging into the tablecloth. “For three years, he was impenetrable because he cared about no one. Now, he looks at this girl as if she were his entire world. If you take her, you take Dante Moretti.”
Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed into dark, calculating slits. “The tower security is impossible. Marco Russo has forty armed men on the floor.”
“She is leaving the tower tomorrow afternoon,” Camila revealed, a cruel smile spreading across her face. “Dante has arranged for her to visit a private publishing house on Grand Avenue to discuss printing her manuscript. He thinks he is surprising her. He is sending only two security cars with her.”
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Lorenzo leaned back, a low, sinister grin forming on his face. “A publishing house on Grand Avenue. Quiet street. Easy escape routes to the highway.”
“Take her,” Camila commanded coldly. “Destroy her, or hold her hostage until Dante surrenders his control of the river shipping terminals to your family. I don't care what you do with her—as long as she never walks into Dante’s penthouse again.”
