Chapter 9 - The Blood Bargain
By four in the morning, the tension inside Blackwood Manor had reached an unbearable peak.
Sophie sat on the plush velvet sofa in the grand salon, wrapped in a heavy wool shawl that Rose had brought her.
A silver pot of chamomile tea sat untouched on the mahogany side table.
Every thirty seconds, Sophie’s gaze flickered toward the tall arched windows that looked out over the front courtyard.
The storm had not let up; it battered the leaded panes with violent gusts of wind that shook the heavy drapes.
Henry Romano sat in his wingback armchair beside the roaring fireplace, his hands resting motionless on his cane.
He had not spoken in an hour.
He looked like an ancient stone statue waiting for an inevitable decree.
Suddenly, the low rumble of heavy engines cut through the sound of the howling wind.
Headlights swept across the vaulted ceiling as three black SUVs rolled up the gravel driveway.
Rose stood up immediately, smoothing her skirts, her jaw tightening.
Sophie rose to her feet as well, her hand pressing instinctively against the small, firm swell of her stomach.
The heavy oak front doors swung open.
Cold, wet night air rushed into the warm salon, carrying the sharp scent of ozone, rain, and burned gunpowder.
Jake entered first.
He had removed his tactical vest, but his dress shirt was soaked with rain and stained with dark streaks of grease across the cuffs.
A light graze along his right temple was weeping a thin bead of crimson down his jawline.
Sophie gasped softly, taking an involuntary half-step toward him before she managed to stop herself.
Jake caught the movement.
Their eyes met across the vast expanse of the room.
In that brief second, Sophie saw the sheer exhaustion behind his obsidian gaze, but she also saw an unspoken reassurance.
He was alive.
He had come back.
Behind Jake, Marco and two guards dragged a man bound in heavy plastic ties, his head covered in a soaked black canvas hood.
The captive was groaning, his knees dragging along the polished parquet floor.
Marco shoved the man forward, forcing him to his knees on the Persian rug in front of Henry’s armchair.
Jake stepped forward and ripped the black canvas hood off the prisoner’s head.
Dominic Castiglione blinked against the sudden glare of the chandelier, coughing violently as he lifted his chin.
His face was covered in dried blood, his right wrist swollen and discolored to a dark, hideous purple.
Henry did not flinch.
He leaned forward, tapping his cane once against the floorboards.
“Dominic,” Henry said, his deep voice carrying a terrible, ancient calm.
“You have grown since I last saw you at your confirmation twenty years ago.”
Dominic looked up at the old patriarch, his breath rattling in his throat.
“Don Henry...” Dominic stammered, his arrogance completely shattered.
“Tell your grandson to call a doctor for my wrist.”
“It’s broken.”
Jake stepped up behind Dominic, placing a heavy boot squarely between the younger man’s shoulder blades, forcing him down until his forehead touched the wool fibers of the rug.
“You don't get to ask for doctors here, Dominic,” Jake said coldly.
Henry raised a hand, gesturing for Jake to ease the pressure.
Jake lifted his boot, though his dark eyes never left Dominic’s neck.
Henry looked at the captive with cold deliberation.
“Where is your uncle, Dominic?”
Dominic swallowed hard, his uninjured hand trembling against the floor.
“He’s at the Riverdale compound.”
“He’s surrounded by thirty men.”
“If you kill me, he will call the Commission in New York.”
“He will declare this an unsanctioned territorial invasion!”
Rose stepped forward from the shadows of the fireplace, her voice cutting through Dominic’s threats like a surgical scalpel.
“The Commission does not protect cowards who murder their own capos for asking to buy out an innocent maid, Dominic.”
Rose stood over him, her emerald ring catching the firelight.
“Julian Vance was respected by the families in Brooklyn.”
“He had family in Chicago.”
“When they find out Anthony shot him in the back of the head over twenty-five thousand dollars, no one in New York will lift a finger to save your uncle.”
Dominic’s eyes widened with fresh terror.
He had forgotten that Rose Romano was born a Moretti, with ties that ran deeper into the northern syndicates than the Castigliones could ever dream of reaching.
Henry leaned back in his chair, folding his weathered hands over the brass handle of his cane.
“I am not going to kill you tonight, Dominic,” Henry said softly.
Dominic looked up, hope flickering pathetically in his bloodshot eyes.
“You’re... you’re not?”
“No,” Henry said.
“You are going to pick up that telephone on the side table.”
“You are going to call Anthony.”
“And you are going to tell him that if he wants to see his nephew draw another breath, he will come to this manor alone at noon tomorrow.”
Henry’s eyes drifted toward Sophie, who stood frozen near the edge of the salon.
“He will bring the probate documents he stole from Michael Reed’s mobile home.”
“He will bring the deed to the Belmont estate.”
“And he will bring the three million dollars in restitution he owes to Michael’s daughter.”
Dominic shook his head frantically.
“He won't do it!”
“Anthony never surrenders documentation!”
“He would rather let me die!”
Jake bent down, grabbing Dominic by his broken wrist and twisting it slightly.
Dominic screamed, an agonizing, high-pitched wail that rattled the crystal pendants of the chandelier.
“He will do it if he thinks he has a choice, Dominic,” Jake whispered into his ear.
“And you are going to convince him that he has one.”
Marco dragged the screaming man back toward the hallway, his boots scuffing the floor as they led him down toward the holding cells.
The salon fell into a heavy, suffocating quiet once more.
Rose walked over to Jake, pulling a linen handkerchief from her sleeve to gently wipe the streak of blood from his temple.
“You were careless, Jake,” Rose whispered, her maternal scolding betraying her profound relief.
“It was a piece of broken glass from the office window, Grandmother,” Jake said, his voice softening slightly as he allowed the old woman to touch his face.
“Nothing serious.”
Rose nodded, stepping back toward her husband.
Jake turned his head and looked at Sophie.
She had not moved from the edge of the sofa.
Her face was stark white, her hands still clutching the heavy wool shawl around her frame.
She had just witnessed the brutal, terrifying reality of the world her father had run from.
This was the violence Michael Reed had died trying to protect her from.
Jake walked across the salon, stopping two paces away from her.
The scent of rain, smoke, and cold copper clung to his clothes.
“You should be resting,” Jake said softly.
It was the gentlest tone she had ever heard him use.
Sophie looked down at his scarred knuckles, then up into his dark obsidian eyes.
“Did you find out anything else about Julian?” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the crackling fire.
Jake’s jaw tightened.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, water-damaged leather wallet.
He held it out to her.
“We found this in Dominic’s safe,” Jake said.
“It was Julian’s.”
Sophie took the wallet with trembling fingers.
She opened the cracked leather.
Inside was an expired driver’s license, a few folded twenty-dollar bills, and a small, worn photograph tucked behind the plastic sleeve.
It was a photograph of her.
It had been taken on her twenty-third birthday, standing outside the Belmont service gate in the rain, laughing with an umbrella turned inside out.
Julian had carried it with him.
He had kept it against his heart until the moment they took his life.
A single tear fell from Sophie’s eyelashes, landing directly on the plastic sleeve covering her younger, smiling face.
“He really did love me,” Sophie choked out, her knees trembling beneath the hem of her trousers.
Before she could fall, Jake’s hands caught her by the elbows.
His grip was firm, solid, and entirely devoid of the cruelty Collins had shown her in the ballroom.
He held her upright, his broad chest blocking the cold draft from the hallway.
“He loved you enough to die for you, Sophie,” Jake whispered, his voice dark and absolute.
“And tomorrow, we are going to make them pay for every second of terror they made you endure.”
Sophie leaned against his chest for a fraction of a second, drawing in the fierce, unyielding strength of the man who had promised to protect her.
She knew the storm was far from over.
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Tomorrow, Anthony Castiglione would walk through the iron gates of Blackwood Manor.
And twenty-five years of buried blood would finally demand its full accounting.
