Page 81 of Brutal Union
Rosetti game night is over, the wine’s gone, and the city looks good enough to fuck.
That’s Chicago for you—filthy in daylight, gold at night.
I’m still half-buzzed from watching Marco and his new queen play Risk like foreplay. He pretends he doesn’t know I was counting every bruise she left on him. The man’s practically feral now. Good for him. Keeps the family interesting.
While everyone toasts their conquest of Europe, Marco slides a folder toward me. No preamble, no warning. Just a thin smile that says your turn.
I wait a beat before picking up the folder. Inside: a contract. Heavy paper, Hewson crest pressed so deep it bleeds through. The iron-and-blood motif continues in the content, which is written in both legalese and that old Sicilian dialect reserved for either weddings or funerals.
Clause Fourteen catches my eye.
In exigent circumstances, the identity of the bride may be substituted by agreement of both families.
I let out a low whistle. “Christ, that’s specific. Expecting her to evaporate before the vows?”
Marco’s eyes flick up. If you don’t know him, it’s nothing. If you do, it’s enough to freeze a glass of bourbon at ten paces.
“The Hewsons are a delicate situation,” he says, voice flat as a coin on a rail. “We need this to work. You’re not marrying her for affection, Alex. You’re marrying her for the headline. The Hewsons need stability, and we need their access.”
“Ah, romance,” I murmur. “Nothing says happily ever after like mutual blackmail.”
He gives me the look—the one that means shut up and be useful.
“Does she come with a return policy? Money-back guarantee if she doesn’t smile wide enough? Or wears the wrong shoes to a ball?”
He levels me a look that could cut glass. “Don’t fuck it up.”
“Please. I only fuck things worth breaking.”
I flip through the contract, looking for the punchline. There’s a photo paperclipped inside—a candid shot of a girl at a café, face mostly hidden behind a book. Her hair is dark, cut blunt and short, and her hands are so thin you can see where the bones press against the skin, like she’s trying to disappear even while sitting in public. The name is written under it in neat block letters: FRANCES HEWSON.
“Cute,” I say, angling the photo toward Marco. “But I didn’t realize you were setting me up with a library ghost.”
A twitch at the mouth—his version of a genuine laugh. “That’s the only picture we could get. She’s been off-radar for years. Home-schooled, protected. The Hewsons are paranoid, and with good reason. But Frances is the only child, and her father will do anything to keep her out of reach of their enemies.”
“So, you’re saying her hobbies include hiding from assassins and…what, birdwatching from behind bulletproof glass?” I tap the table, letting the folder thud back down. “What’s the real angle? And don’t say ‘family honor’ or I’m going to throw up on your shoes.”
Marco leans forward, steepling his fingers. “The Hewsons are sitting on half the patent rights to the new lithium battery. The moment that tech goes public, every syndicate in the city is going to come crawling for a piece. If we own the alliance, we cut therest out. You get a wife you can ignore, and the family gets a seat at the future’s table.”
There’s a faint commotion at the other end of the room—someone knocks over a wine glass, and the red spreads like a gunshot across the white tablecloth. I look at the stain, then at the contract, and it feels weirdly appropriate.
“What if she says no?” I ask, not because I care, but because I like to imagine there’s still a world where consent is a variable.
“She won’t,” Marco says simply. “Her father controls everything, and she’s been trained for this since birth. If there’s a problem, we handle it.”
I think about what “handle” means in our world. It means she disappears, or worse, she doesn’t.
I close the folder and push it back to him with two fingers. “You ever get tired of playing god with people’s lives?”
He doesn’t answer. He just looks at me like I’m a slow learner, and I suppose I am. I keep hoping the next job will be different, that the violence and the politics will somehow morph into something resembling normalcy. But this is the Moretti way. We don’t do normal. We do efficient, we do ruthless, and sometimes, when the mood strikes, we do poetic.
I get up, stretch, and grab another bottle from the sideboard. The city glows outside—thousands of windows like the eyes of animals, watching, waiting.
I hold up my glass. “To the future Mrs.Moretti, wherever she’s hiding. May she have the sense to run far and fast.”
Marco clinks his glass to mine. “May she have the sense to run straight to us.”
We drink. The wine is red and heavy.
