Chapter 2 - The Sins of the Matriarch
"Tell me everything," I said, rising slowly to my feet. I scooped Ivy up into my arms, letting Skye cling tightly to my hand, and walked toward the heavy leather armchair by the stone fireplace. I sat down with both girls safely settled against my chest, shielding them from the vultures circling in front of me. "Starting with why my mother is terrified of two three-year-old orphans."
Margaret sank uninvited onto the edge of the sofa, looking defeated, small, and terrifyingly human. Ethan remained standing, wringing his hands, while Lauren paced the floor like a caged animal.
"When you married Claire," Margaret began, her voice a brittle whisper, "she came to us with clean papers. A respectable family from the East Coast. But the underworld has long memories, Marcus. Her father wasn't a businessman; he was a high-ranking accountant for the Chicago Outfit before he tried to skim the wrong ledger and ended up at the bottom of Lake Michigan."
I stared at her. "I knew her father died young. Claire told me it was a car crash."
"A lie," Margaret spat bitterly. "She was protected by the old guard. And when you rose to power, she saw a way to shield her family name. But what you never knew—what she hid from you until the very end—was that she had a twin sister."
The room spun. "A twin?"
"Helen," Margaret nodded. "Identical in face, but weak in spirit. While Claire was smart enough to play the part of a dutiful mafia boss’s wife, Helen fell in love with a man from a rival syndicate—the Moretti family out of Detroit. When you and Claire were trying for children and failing year after year, Helen got pregnant. Twice. Twins."
My breath hitched. I looked down at Ivy and Skye. Their dark hair, the slight slope of their noses, the fierce, unyielding glint in their green eyes—they weren't just random children. They were my nieces. The blood of two rival syndicates mixed together in secret.
"Why were they abandoned?" I demanded. "If they are Claire’s blood nieces, why were they left on my front porch like trash?"
"Because," Lauren cut in, unable to keep quiet any longer, "Helen died last week! And the Moretti family is hunting down every living relative to wipe out their bloodline in a turf war. Helen knew the only place safe from Detroit hitmen was inside the fortress of the most feared mafia boss in the country—your house. She sent them to Claire's favorite refuge, hoping you’d find them before Margaret’s cleaners did."
Margaret shot Lauren a murderous glare that could have stopped a heart, but it was too late. The pieces of the puzzle fell into place with a terrifying, crystal-clear click.
Margaret didn't want the girls here because their presence meant war. If the Moretti syndicate discovered that the daughters of their traitorous bloodline were hiding in Marcus Whitmore’s lake house, a full-scale mafia war would ignite across the Midwest before the week was out.
"Mother," I said, my voice dropping into a deadly, flat register. "You knew Helen was hiding them. You knew they were in Chicago."
"I knew they were a liability," Margaret replied, her spine straightening just a fraction as her old coldness returned. "If Detroit finds out those girls exist, they will trace them straight to our doorstep. We give them to the state, or we hand them over quietly. Either way, they cannot stay here."
I slowly stood up, setting Ivy and Skye gently behind me against the sofa cushions. I walked across the room until I stood towering over my mother, looking down at her with the full weight of a syndicate boss who had executed traitors for less.
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"Listen to me very carefully," I whispered, leaning in so close she could see the cold fury burning in my eyes. "These girls are my blood. They are sitting in my late wife's house. And anyone—anyone—who tries to take them from me, whether it's a Detroit hitman or my own mother, will learn why they call me the Devil of Chicago."
Ethan paled visibly. Margaret’s jaw tightened, but for the first time in her life, she didn't meet my gaze.
