All Chapters of The Mafia Heiress They Called Dead Weight: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Victoria's promised explanation came sooner than I expected.The next morning, I was feeding the pigeons by the floor-to-ceiling window in my top-floor studio.It was the one corner of this building that belonged to me alone.The encrypted phone on my desk rang. The front desk had put through a video call.The screen lit up, and Uncle Silvio's wrinkled face appeared.Behind him, a blue pool glittered in the sun. He was at his retirement villa in Florida."Bella, nice weather today, isn't it?"His voice was warm and thick with a Sicilian accent."Not bad, Uncle."I looked at his gray hair, and my heart ached a little.After my father died, Uncle Silvio was the only parental figure I had left.He'd never married, and he loved me like his own daughter.But his health had been poor these past few years, so he'd been recovering in Florida and had left the family's affairs entirely to Victoria."Good, good."He rubbed his hands together, looking a little uneasy."Victoria called me this morn

By September, the Feast of San Gennaro had come around again.Fall in New York brought cold wind and rain. This was the family's most important day of the year.By tradition, the first glass of wine offered at the start of the festival procession had to be poured by a Moretti.It wasn't just a show of reverence for the patron saint. It also told all of New York whose territory this was.This year, the main altar stood along Mulberry Street in Little Italy.The rain had stopped, and the air smelled like grilled sausage and zeppole.I stood at the far edge of the viewing stand, a black umbrella in my hand.At the altar, Victoria cut a dignified, commanding figure in an elegantly tailored black coat.Vince was at her side in a well-cut suit. Together, they looked like power personified.Uncle Silvio had been invited too, but he'd only been given an armchair in the second row.He gazed up at Victoria on the stage, beaming with pride.The appointed hour arrived."Let the offering begin," th

The air in the hallway seemed to freeze.The only sound was the soft hum of the air vents.Vince took a deep breath and tugged at his tie.He was trying to keep his poise, but his fingertips wouldn't stop trembling."Isabella, do you really have to take it this far?"He looked at me with a pained, heartbroken expression, as if I were some hopeless sinner."Do you have any idea how many nights Victoria stayed up for this brand? How many enemies she made at the negotiating table? Can't you see any of that?"You're using one rigid rule to wipe out years of her hard work. That's not fair."As always, he was trying to shame me into backing down.I looked at his "wounded" expression and couldn't help laughing."Fair?"I turned to Victoria, who'd been silent the whole time."Victoria, why don't you tell him what you were really doing on all those late nights?"Victoria swallowed and didn't say anything.I pulled another stack of papers out of my bag and threw it straight at her chest.The pap

"Give it back?"I looked at Victoria's tear-streaked face. I didn't back away or flinch."With what money?"I took another document from Sophia and flipped straight to the last page."To cover the holes left by those offshore shell companies, you didn't just drain the family's cash. You also pledged the old headquarters redevelopment project as collateral for a fifty-million-dollar loan from Irish loan sharks."Each word echoed down the hallway and cut deep."Now that Ivanov's pulling out, you're out of money."With the interest piling up on that fifty million, you couldn't pay it off even if you sold yourself."Victoria froze where she stood.I'd already uncovered the secret accounts she'd thought were so well hidden.Vince's polished act finally crumbled.He shoved Victoria away and pointed right in my face, his voice so hoarse it cracked."Isabella! You planned this all along, didn't you?"You pretended you didn't understand anything, let us take your dividends, and watched us sink

A week later, the rain had finally cleared from New York.Early fall sunlight streamed through the windows of the old headquarters, scattering patches of light.Moretti Tower had been sealed by federal authorities, and a new team of professional managers was restructuring the assets.Victoria had been indicted on multiple felony charges under the RICO Act and ordered held without bail.Her carefully maintained composure was gone in federal detention. Rumor had it she got into fights with a Mexican gang over the TV remote every day.Vince tried to make a run for it at the airport, but with massive debts in his name and fraud charges pending, he was barred from leaving.Now he was bankrupt, with creditors all over the country after him. He couldn't even afford the Brooklyn studio he'd rented for me, and I heard he was getting by selling off his designer suits.Uncle Silvio fell seriously ill.Once he got out of the hospital, he flat-out refused to return to Florida. He insisted on moving