Chapter 12 - The Wolf in the Drawing Room
Inside the great library of the Lake Forest manor, the grandfather clock struck four in the morning.
The heavy chime echoed through the walnut-paneled room, vibrating the crystal decanters on the sideboard.
Carlo Romano stood with his back to the unlit fireplace, leaning on an ebony cane topped with a polished silver wolf’s head.
At sixty-two, Carlo possessed the same aristocratic bone structure as his late brother Salvatore, but his eyes were smaller, shifty, and clouded by decades of bitter resentment.
He wore a tailored camel-hair coat over an immaculate charcoal three-piece suit.
On the floor four feet in front of him sat Thomas Miller.
My father was tied to the heavy oak library chair with yellow nylon cargo straps, his aluminum crutches lying broken across the hearth like kindling.
A deep gash above my father’s left eyebrow was dripping dark blood down his weathered cheek, soaking into the collar of his faded flannel shirt.
His breathing was rough and wheezing, each inhale rattling against his damaged lungs.
Yet his chin remained lifted, his bloodshot eyes staring into Carlo Romano’s face with pure, unyielding hatred.
“You’re wasting your breath, you overdressed vulture,” my father spat, a fleck of blood landing on the polished leather of Carlo’s Italian loafers.
Carlo looked down at his shoe with mild disgust.
He reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a silk handkerchief, and slowly dabbed the leather clean.
“Such vulgarity,” Carlo remarked smoothly, his voice cultured and venomous.
“You South Side union laborers truly believe that stubbornness is a virtue.”
“You think taking a beating makes you noble, Thomas.”
“In reality, it simply makes you messy.”
Carlo tossed the soiled handkerchief onto my father’s lap.
Two large men in tactical jackets stood near the heavy double doors, their MP5 submachine guns held at low-ready.
Near the window overlooking the north lawn, three more armed enforcers were tracking the tree line with thermal optics.
Carlo checked his gold Patek Philippe watch.
“Nine minutes remaining.”
“Your daughter is remarkably tardy, Thomas.”
“Perhaps she took my nephew’s advice and tried to run for the Canadian border.”
“Claire won't run,” my father wheezed, his chest straining against the nylon straps.
“She has more iron in her little finger than your whole degenerate bloodline has ever possessed.”
Carlo smiled thinly, stepping forward until the tip of his silver-headed cane rested against the open wound on my father’s temple.
He pressed down slightly.
My father grunted, his teeth grinding together in agony, but he refused to cry out.
“Your daughter is an hourly servant who looked where she wasn't supposed to look,” Carlo whispered.
“She looked at a bottle of medicine.”
“She looked at a paper label.”
“And because of her ridiculous, peasant curiosity, thirty years of careful planning have been compromised in a single evening.”
“Salvatore was your brother,” my father rasped, his voice trembling with genuine disgust.
“He shared your mother’s blood.”
“He built the empire that bought those shoes on your feet.”
“Salvatore was an arrogant pig who treated me like a glorified bookkeeper for forty years!” Carlo snarled, his mask of aristocratic calm slipping for a fraction of a second, exposing the raw, festering hatred underneath.
“He sat at the head of the table while I counted the nickels from the concrete trucks.”
“He gave his worthless, hot-headed son the keys to the kingdom while I was left to manage offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands.”
Carlo lifted the cane from my father’s temple and tapped it against the floorboards.
“Salvatore was old.”
“He was losing his grip on the city council.”
“The Vale family understood where the future was headed.”
“Subtle power.”
“Chemical solutions.”
“A sudden heart failure in a private bedroom creates no headlines, Thomas.”
“It causes no stock market crashes on the Chicago Board of Trade.”
“It simply allows the assets to transfer smoothly into more capable, modern hands.”
“And Donna Carmela?” my father whispered.
“What was her crime?”
Carlo laughed, a dry, clicking sound like dry bones rattling in a jar.
“Carmela saw Evelyn Vale in the hallway two years ago.”
“She was supposed to die six months ago, but Daniel Keating lost his nerve and reduced the dosage.”
“Tonight was supposed to be the final adjustment.”
“A quiet funeral on Friday.”
“A lavish wedding next month.”
“And then, a tragic boating accident for my dear nephew Matteo on Lake Michigan before the winter freeze.”
Carlo drew a short-barreled .38 revolver from his coat pocket, pulling back the hammer with a sharp, distinct mechanical click.
He pointed the barrel directly between my father’s eyes.
“Seven minutes, Thomas.”
“If that heavy wooden door doesn't open with my chemical ledger in seven minutes, I am going to paint that portrait of my brother behind you with your grey matter.”
Beneath the library floorboards, deep within the darkness of the heating ducts, a tiny green LED light blinked to life.
Leo Miller was lying on his stomach in the narrow crawlspace, his knees bruised by the rough concrete, his face smudged with dust and furnace soot.
Propped on a metal support beam before him was his battered Lenovo laptop, connected by three stripped telephone wires to the main RS-485 automation terminal of the manor.
Lines of green hexadecimal code cascaded rapidly down the dark screen.
Leo’s fingers danced silently across the mechanical keyboard, his breath fogging his glasses in the cold basement air.
“Come on... come on, you proprietary piece of garbage,” Leo whispered to himself, his teeth chattering.
On the screen, a graphic display of the manor’s third-floor fire-suppression grid appeared.
A warning box flashed in amber: HALON DISCHARGE READY — SECTOR 4: PRIMARY ARCHIVE / LIBRARY.
Beside it, a second dialog box appeared: HVAC RECIRCULATION DAMPER: MANUAL OVERRIDE AVAILABLE.
Leo pushed his glasses up his nose, his eyes darting to a terminal clock ticking down in the corner of the screen.
05:42.
Five minutes and forty-two seconds until Carlo pulled the trigger.
Leo opened a terminal window and typed a single line of script:
WAIT_FOR_TRIGGER: RF_FREQUENCY_462.550 (MATTEO_VHF_MIC)
EXECUTE: DUMP_HALON_TANK_B; VENT_EXHAUST_OPEN_50PCT; TRIP_MAIN_BREAKER_SECTOR_4
Leo closed his eyes for two seconds, touching the worn silver miraculous medal his mother had given him before she died.
May you like
“Hurry up, Claire,” he breathed into the darkness.
“Please, hurry up.”
