Chapter 2

I held my son's cold hand while my phone vibrated for the third time.

"Isabella, explain things to Anthony for me."

Luca sounded tired. He did not sound worried.

"Mara is young, and this is her first pregnancy. She was terrified. I could not leave her alone in that apartment."

I looked at Anthony's pale face beneath the sheet and said nothing.

Luca kept talking.

"What happened between Mara and me was an accident."

"I drank too much. Neither of us planned it. The baby is mine, so I have to take responsibility."

He spoke as though his affair were another expense in the family books.

When I stayed silent, his voice grew impatient.

"You have always said this family needed another child."

"After the baby is born, you can raise it."

"Mara is too young to understand family rules or how to prepare an heir. You are better at that."

I looked at the silver Rinaldi signet ring tied around Anthony's wrist.

It was too large for him. That morning, he had threaded it onto a black cord so he would not lose it.

Before he left, he asked me a question.

"Mom, if I get into St. Ignatius, do you think Dad will finally see me as a real Rinaldi?"

Now there was blood on the ring.

I closed his fingers around it.

"I understand, Luca."

I arranged Anthony's funeral alone.

Luca did not appear for three days.

He stayed at Mara's apartment with a private doctor and extra guards. He refused to risk the slightest problem with her pregnancy.

Twenty years earlier, Luca had three men, a bar he could not afford, and an old gun that jammed.

I secured his first shipping route through the port.

I convinced the longshoremen's union to deal with the Rinaldi name.

I rebuilt his books, intelligence network, and internal rules. I turned a group of street fighters into a force the East Coast took seriously.

I found Luca banks, attorneys, and city officials.

I planned every takeover that expanded his territory.

I knew how to make a witness change his story. I also knew how to make a body disappear.

I stopped the Moretti family from crushing him. I convinced the old New York families to let him survive.

Now the Rinaldis controlled port contracts, construction companies, illegal casinos, and half the nightclubs in the city.

People called Luca the youngest boss in New Jersey.

They praised his nerve, judgment, and vision.

Very few people knew that I had built every part of his organization.

After Anthony's funeral Mass, I asked my attorney to prepare divorce papers.

Then I called Victor.

"End every Moretti protection agreement with the Rinaldis."

The line stayed quiet for a few seconds.

"You want the ports, unions, city contacts, and legal network removed?"

"Remove all of it."

"You protected him for twenty years. Without you, Luca could not hold one back alley in Brooklyn."

I looked at the small white coffin in the center of the church.

"Then let him find out what he actually owns."

Victor did not ask another question.

"Tomorrow night is the fifteenth-anniversary charity gala for the Rinaldi Foundation. I will bring the Commission."