Chapter 1 - The Scapegoat
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The heavy oak doors at the far end of the ballroom opened.
Vincent’s body went rigid.
His mother stood there.
Camila was not supposed to be downstairs. She was supposed to be in the east wing, sedated and supervised by a private nurse who had apparently failed at the single task Vincent paid her to perform.
Camila wandered beneath the chandeliers in a silk nightgown clinging loosely to her frail body. Her gray hair was uncombed, hanging around her face. Her eyes moved quickly across the room without understanding it. Her mind had trapped her in a year that had passed two decades earlier.
The jazz band faltered.
Conversation diminished until a tense silence stretched through the ballroom.
Vincent left the wall. The room was large, and too many bodies stood between them. He watched his mother move farther into the crowd.
Camila appeared frightened by the lights. She stumbled through the center of the ballroom and collided with Beatrice Gallow.
Beatrice spun around. The Chicago underboss’s wife was covered in diamonds and wearing a scarlet gown that looked almost like an open wound beneath the chandeliers.
The collision knocked her arm. A full glass of red wine poured down the front of the gown. The crystal flute slipped from Camila’s trembling hand and shattered on the marble.
The sound cracked through the vaulted room.
“What the hell is this?” Beatrice shouted.
She looked at the stain spreading across her dress. Then she fixed her attention on Camila.
“I’m looking for my husband,” Camila whispered. “Have you seen Thomas?”
Thomas had been dead for ten years.
Beatrice laughed. It was not amusement. It was the deliberate, ugly laughter of a woman who wanted the room to hear her.
“Thomas? Are you insane?” She turned slightly so her voice could travel. “Is this the great Russo matriarch? The woman who gave birth to the devil of New York?”
Her gaze returned to Camila. “Look at her. She’s a senile old bat. She belongs in an asylum, not wandering around like a stray dog.”
Vincent was approximately twenty feet away. Then ten. Around him, his men waited. Across the ballroom, Chicago soldiers shifted their hands toward the inside of their jackets.
Vincent understood the equation instantly. If he drew a weapon, the treaty ended. If he attacked Beatrice, Carmine had the excuse he wanted. The ballroom would become a killing ground.
Camila was standing directly in the middle of it. Vincent was trapped by strategy.
Beatrice stepped closer to his mother. “You pathetic creature. You ruined my dress. Pick up that glass.”
Camila recoiled. A tear moved down her wrinkled cheek.
“Pick it up before I have someone throw you into the rain.”
Camila looked at the pieces of crystal. Then, obediently, she began bending her knees.
A figure cut through the crowd. Gray and white. A maid.
The young woman moved into the space between Camila and Beatrice and dropped directly onto her knees among the broken glass.
Vincent saw her shoulders tighten when crystal cut through the thin material of her uniform. She made no sound. Instead, she began sweeping the pieces into her bare hands.
“I am so sorry, ma’am.” Her voice was clear enough for Beatrice to hear. “It was my fault. I tripped. I pushed the poor woman into you. I’m incredibly clumsy. Please forgive me.”
It was an obvious lie. Half the ballroom had watched Camila collide with Beatrice. But the maid was offering herself as a substitute target. A scapegoat.
Beatrice stared down at her, momentarily derailed by the audacity. “You clumsy idiot. Do you have any idea what this dress costs? It’s worth more than your miserable life.”
“I know, ma’am. I’m sorry.”
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The maid kept her head down. She collected the last pieces. Blood began to appear on her palms. Small red drops hit the white marble. Dark stains spread across the knees of her gray skirt.
Vincent finally reached them.
