Chapter 4 - The Hollow Crown
**Las Vegas — Three Months Later**
The penthouse at the Palms was silent except for the frantic, rhythmic tapping of long acrylic nails against a marble island.
Lily Moretti—she had legally dropped our family surname six months ago and taken Dante’s without an official ceremony—slammed her glass of white wine down, splashing the marble.
"She isn't dead, Dante! I know she isn't dead!"
Dante sat at the head of the twenty-seat dining table, a stack of legal filings spread before him. He was forty now, but the last eighteen months had aged him by ten years. Silver streaks ran thick through his black hair, and his eyes carried the hollow, twitchy restlessness of a man whose foundations were crumbling beneath him.
"Shut up, Lily," he muttered without looking up from the papers.
"Don't tell me to shut up!" Lily shrieked, her face flushed red, her designer silk robe slipping off one shoulder. "The private investigators came back with nothing again! Chicago was a dead end! The social security flags triggered nothing! She's out there waiting! I can feel her!"
Across the room, in the nursery, eighteen-month-old Isabella began to wail—a shrill, colicky cry that had not stopped for three hours.
Dante pinched the bridge of his nose, his jaw ticking furiously. "Go deal with your daughter."
"She’s *our* daughter!" Lily hissed, leaning over the table, her face inches from his. "That was the deal, Dante! You said once Claire was out of the picture, we’d be legitimate! You said we’d be married by the time Isabella turned one! It’s been a year and a half, and I’m still living in this penthouse like a dirty secret while your board members call me 'the nanny' behind my back!"
"You want to know why we aren't married?" Dante snarled, rising from his chair so violently that the mahogany legs screeched against the floor. He towered over her, his eyes wild with suppressed rage. "Because the Clark County probate judge won't sign off on Claire's death certificate! Because someone is blocking the petition!"
"Who?" Lily gasped, backing up a step. "Who could block a district judge?"
"Sterling," Dante whispered, the name tasting like ash in his mouth. "Julian Sterling’s legal team filed an injunction yesterday morning claiming Claire Evans Moretti’s estate has active international claims that must be settled in person."
Lily frowned, confusion dulling her panic. "Sterling? The man you owe ninety million to? Why does he care about Claire?"
"He doesn't care about Claire," Dante snapped, grabbing his whiskey glass and draining it in one burn. "He’s squeezing me. He knows if I can't liquidate her father’s shares, I have to surrender twenty percent of the casino floor at the Sands to cover the interest payment. He’s using her ghost to bleed me dry."
The door to the penthouse suite clicked open.
My mother, Eleanor, walked in, carrying a Bergdorf Goodman shopping bag in one hand and a gold-plated baby bottle in the other. She looked brittle, her hair dyed an unnatural platinum blonde, her face stretched tight from a recent facelift Dante had funded.
"Dante, darling," Eleanor purred, ignoring Lily's tears as she glided in. "The gala invitations for tomorrow night arrived. The governor’s office confirmed their table, but there’s a rumor that Julian Sterling is personally attending this year. He hasn't shown his face at a public charity event in Vegas for five years."
Dante froze, his glass halfway to the counter. "Sterling is coming?"
"That’s what the committee chair said," Eleanor replied, pulling an ivory card from her bag. "They say he’s introducing his new executive partner. Some finance prodigy who restructured his shipping assets in Rotterdam."
Dante’s eyes narrowed into dark, calculating slits. A desperate, feral smile began to creep across his face.
"If Sterling is in the room," Dante murmured to himself, "I can corner him. In front of the governor and the gaming commissioners, he won't be able to refuse a structured settlement. He won't risk a scene."
He turned to Lily, his voice cold and devoid of affection. "Get yourself a dress. Something modest. No low cuts, no cheap glitter. You’re coming with me."
Lily’s eyes lit up with pathetic, desperate triumph. "Really? You're taking me as your date?"
"I’m taking you as the mother of my child," Dante said flatly, already turning his back on her to review his financial talking points. "We present a unified family front. The commissioners like family men. Eleanor, you watch Isabella."
"Of course, darling," Eleanor smiled, her eyes gleaming with the reflected glory of high-society status she had traded her eldest daughter to purchase.
May you like
None of them noticed the cold, dry wind rattling the floor-to-ceiling glass of the penthouse balcony. None of them realized that the storm they thought had blown away eighteen months ago had simply been gathering strength out in the dark.
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