Chapter 7 - The Cold Cellar Confession
The air beneath Blackwood Manor was thick with the scent of damp lime, ancient limestone, and cold earth.
The basement levels had been excavated during the prohibition era, a complex of reinforced stone tunnels originally built to store bootleg liquor.
Now, they served a far darker purpose for the Romano family.
Sophie walked down the narrow stone stairs, flanked by Rose on one side and a silent, broad-shouldered guard named Marco on the other.
She had refused to stay in the guest suite.
Rose had tried to dissuade her, telling her that an expectant mother should not witness the violence of men.
Sophie had shaken her head, her jaw set with a stubbornness that belonged entirely to her father.
“I spent two years crying in the laundry room while Collins counted his kickbacks,” Sophie had said.
“I want to look at him when he tells the truth.”
At the end of the corridor, a heavy steel door stood open, revealing a square concrete chamber lit by a single hanging bulb.
Mr. Collins sat bound to a heavy wooden chair in the center of the room.
His bespoke gala tuxedo was ripped at the seams, the white shirt stained with grease and dark streaks of sweat.
His mouth was cut, and one of his eyes was swollen shut beneath a purple, pulpy bruise.
Jake Romano stood over him, rolling his white dress shirtsleeves up over his muscular forearms, revealing the black daggers inked into his skin.
A galvanized steel bucket sat on the floor near Jake’s boots, half-full of murky water.
When Collins heard the sound of Henry’s cane clicking against the concrete floor, he began thrashing against the heavy hemp ropes.
“Mr. Romano!” Collins shrieked, his voice bouncing hysterically off the bare stone walls.
“Please!”
“I only managed the domestic staff!”
“I followed the employment protocols given to me by the property holding board!”
Henry stopped three feet in front of the chair, resting both hands on the curved handle of his cane.
He looked down at Collins with the profound, chilling indifference a man might show to an insect on the tread of his shoe.
“Who owns the holding board, Collins?” Henry asked softly.
Collins swallowed violently, his remaining good eye darting frantically toward Jake, then toward Sophie.
When his gaze landed on Sophie standing wrapped in the cashmere sweater, his expression twisted with panicked recognition.
“Sophie!” Collins cried out, leaning forward until the ropes bit into his chest.
“Tell them!”
“I gave you clean quarters!”
“I let you take three days off when you had the influenza last winter!”
“I never docked you the full replacement cost for the broken chinaware!”
Sophie stepped forward, her voice dead of all fear.
“You charged me four hundred dollars for antibiotics that cost twelve dollars at the corner pharmacy.”
“You told me every month that if I walked through the iron gates, you would call the county sheriff and have me arrested for grand larceny.”
“You knew Julian was dead, didn't you?”
Collins went completely still.
The frantic thrashing stopped.
His skin, already pale from terror, took on the sickly gray hue of spoiled milk.
Jake stepped behind the chair, grabbing Collins by his thinning hair and yanking his head backward until the tendons in the overseer’s neck strained.
“Answer the lady, Collins,” Jake whispered into his ear.
“Did you know Vance was dead when you grabbed her arm in the ballroom?”
Collins whimpered, his breath hitching in his throat.
“Anthony called me,” Collins sobbed, the dam of his resistance collapsing entirely.
“Three months ago.”
“He said Vance had broken contract.”
“He said Vance was no longer running harbor logistics.”
“He told me to increase her supervision.”
“He said if Sophie took one step off the property line before her twenty-fifth birthday, he would hang me from the crane on Pier 4!”
Henry leaned forward, his steel-gray eyes boring into the weeping man.
“Where is Anthony Castiglione holding council tonight?”
Collins shook his head frantically.
“I don't know!”
“I swear to God on my mother’s soul, I don't know!”
“I only report to his nephew, Dominic!”
“Dominic handles the Belmont accounts!”
Jake tightened his grip on Collins’s hair, pulling the man’s scalp back another inch.
“Where does Dominic sleep, Collins?”
Collins let out a sharp squeal of agony.
“The meatpacking district!”
“The refrigerated warehouse on Tenth Avenue!”
“He runs the distribution books from the second-floor office!”
“He has six men with him!”
“That’s all I know!”
“I swear that’s all I know!”
Jake let go of Collins’s hair.
The overseer’s head dropped forward, his chest heaving as he sobbed uncontrollably into his stained tuxedo shirt.
Jake wiped his palms on a clean white handkerchief he pulled from his trousers.
He walked over to his grandfather.
“Dominic Castiglione is Anthony’s favored bloodline nephew,” Jake said, keeping his voice low so it would not echo.
“He’s thirty-two, reckless, and runs their northern extortion ring.”
“If Vance was trying to clear Sophie’s papers, Dominic was the one who signed off on the execution order.”
Henry nodded slowly, his face like carved granite in the harsh glare of the bare bulb.
“Dominic is also Anthony’s only surviving brother’s son,” Henry mused.
“Anthony loves that boy like his own flesh.”
Henry turned his back on Collins and looked at Jake.
“Take four men.”
“Go to Tenth Avenue.”
“Bring Dominic Castiglione here alive.”
Sophie stepped toward the old man, her heart leaping into her throat.
“Wait,” Sophie said, her hand reaching out involuntarily toward Jake’s arm before she caught herself.
Jake stopped, his dark eyes turning down to look at her.
There was no contempt in his gaze now; only a lethal, focused gravity that made the room feel colder.
“If you attack their warehouse, you will start a war across the whole city,” Sophie said, her voice trembling with the weight of the realization.
“People will die.”
“More people will end up like Julian.”
Jake looked at her for a long, quiet moment.
“The war didn't start tonight, Sophie,” Jake said softly, his voice dropping into that dark baritone that sent chills through her bones.
“The war started twenty-five years ago when your father rammed a tow truck through a barricade to save my grandfather.”
“It continued ten years ago when they ran Michael off Route 9.”
“And it reached this house the moment they shot Julian Vance in the head and left you to starve in an apron.”
Jake reached out, his rough, scarred fingers brushing gently against the silver chain resting on Sophie’s collarbone.
“We are not starting a war, Sophie,” Jake whispered.
“We are finishing one.”
He turned on his heel and walked toward the iron stairs, his boots ringing rhythmically against the stone.
Marco fell into step behind him, pulling a suppressed semi-automatic pistol from his shoulder holster to check the chamber.
Rose took Sophie’s arm and gently guided her away from the concrete chamber where Collins sat sobbing into his chest.
“Come upstairs, darling,” Rose said softly.
“It is going to be a very long night.”
Sophie allowed herself to be led up the stairs, but as she reached the threshold of the cellar door, she turned back one last time.
She looked at the damp, ancient walls of the Romano stronghold.
She had spent her entire life believing she was an insignificant girl whose existence was worth less than twenty-eight thousand dollars of forged debt.
May you like
Now, the machinery of an entire criminal empire was grinding into motion around her name.
And she could feel the tiny, rapid heartbeat beneath her sweater, anchoring her to the storm that was about to break.
