566 The Maid Screamed That the Mafia Boss’s Fiancée Was Slitting the Baby’s Throat Until His First Breath Exposed Who Had Really Come to Kill Him

By late afternoon, the Moretti estate looked less like a home and more like a crime scene under federal investigation.

State troopers and local police—all of whom answered quietly to Dante’s payroll—processed the courtyard where Clara Bell’s body had been recovered. Inside the house, Dante’s private security detail tore the staff quarters apart, searching every locker, every mattress, and every personal effect belonging to the late maid.

Dante sat behind his massive mahogany desk in the study, a glass of neat bourbon untouched beside his hand.

Sal Mercer walked in, dropping a weathered leather notebook onto the center of the blotter.

"We found it taped to the underside of Clara’s dresser drawer," Sal said, his tired eyes weighed down by a heavy scowl. "It’s a ledger. Not payroll. Not housekeeping. Financial wire receipts routed through offshore shell companies in the Cayman Islands."

Dante picked up the notebook, flipping open the cover. The handwriting was neat, precise, entirely different from the hurried scribbles Clara used for grocery lists.

"Who sent the wire transfers?" Dante asked, his voice low.

"That's the interesting part," Sal replied, pulling out a folded printout. "The funds didn't originate from your rivals in Milwaukee. And they didn't come from Everett Cross."

"Name."

"Marcus Reed."

Dante froze. The glass of bourbon seemed to grow colder. Marcus Reed was the former head of security for Marco and Elena Moretti—the man who had supposedly died eight months ago when their car exploded on the private access road.

"Marcus is dead," Dante said flatly. "We identified his dental remains in the wreckage."

"That's what we thought," Sal said, tossing the printout onto the desk. "Turns out, the dental records matched a John Doe pulled from a river three days before the car bomb. Marcus switched identities six months before your brother died. He didn't die in that explosion, Dante. He engineered it."

Dante stared at the name on the paper. Marcus Reed.

The man who had stood beside him at Marco’s funeral. The man who had organized the estate’s security protocols. The man who had hired Clara Bell.

"He wanted the syndicate," Dante whispered, the pieces finally snapping together with terrifying clarity. "He wanted my brother out of the way, he wanted me distracted by a war with the Cross family, and he wanted Leo eliminated so there would be no legitimate heir to challenge his takeover."

"And Clara was his inside operative," Sal added grimly. "She poisoned Marco and Elena's car brakes eight months ago. She tried to finish the job on the baby today because she realized Vivienne was getting too close to the truth."

Dante closed the ledger slowly. The anger building inside him wasn't hot or chaotic; it was cold, dense, and lethal.

"Where is Vivienne?" Dante asked.