Chapter 5 - The Forbidden Threshold
The aftermath of the advocate’s disastrous visit left the household on high alert. Rocco’s legal team worked frantically behind the scenes to file a formal complaint against Eleanor Vance for misconduct, leveraging her unauthorized searching of the house to neutralize her negative report.
But a deeper tension now simmered within the brownstone. The mention of the name Ashford at the docks hung over Delaney like a dark cloud. She found herself jumping at small noises, constantly checking the locks, and spending every spare moment with the girls, as if her physical presence could shield them from the coming storm.
One late evening, while Rocco was out at an emergency meeting with his captains, Delaney was walking the third-floor hallway. She had just tucked the girls into bed. Aria had insisted on sleeping in Piper’s room, a sign that the sisters were banding together for comfort.
As Delaney passed the end of the hall, she stopped.
The white door. Isabella’s room.
For the past two months, it had remained a forbidden threshold, locked and silent, a monument to a past Delaney felt she could never compete with. But tonight, she noticed something unusual. The door wasn't fully latched. A tiny, centimeter-wide gap showed a sliver of darkness within. Carmela must have failed to secure it properly after retrieving the items Eleanor Vance had disturbed.
Driven by a sudden, irresistible compulsion, Delaney reached out. Her fingers brushed the cold brass knob. She pushed gently. The door swung open without a sound.
The room smelled faintly of dust, old lavender, and a expensive floral perfume that had long since faded. The furniture was covered in white sheets, giving the space a ghostly appearance. It was a beautiful, tragic tomb.
Delaney walked inside, her footsteps muffled by the thick Persian rug. She didn't know what she was looking for—perhaps a clue to the man Rocco used to be, or the woman who had held his heart before her. She approached a delicate mahogany vanity in the corner. Unlike the other furniture, the dust here had been recently disturbed, likely by the court advocate.
A small drawer was pulled slightly askew. Inside lay a collection of old letters, tied together with a faded blue ribbon. Delaney reached in, her conscience pricking her, telling her to turn back. But as she lifted the bundle, a loose envelope slid out from the bottom, falling to the floor.
It wasn't addressed to Rocco. It wasn't written in Isabella’s elegant script.
The handwriting on the envelope was jagged, frantic, and entirely too familiar. It was the handwriting of Grant Ashford.
Delaney’s breath caught in her throat. Her knees turned to water as she collapsed onto the floor, staring at the envelope. It was addressed to Isabella Bellandi. The postmark was from four years ago—just weeks before Isabella’s fatal car crash, and right around the time Delaney and Grant had celebrated their first wedding anniversary.
With trembling fingers, Delaney tore open the envelope. The paper inside was crisp, bearing the official letterhead of the Ashford Group.
Isabella,
We cannot keep doing this. The risk is becoming too great. Rocco is growing suspicious of the shipping anomalies at Pier 42, and my mother is demanding a greater share of the laundered pharmaceutical distribution. If Rocco discovers that the Ashford Group has been using his legitimate shipping routes to move our unregulated synthetics, he will kill us both.
You promised me that you would get the security logs for the eastern warehouse. I need them by Friday. I know you say you want out, that you want to protect your daughters, but you are as deep in this as I am. If I go down, I take the Bellandi empire with me. Do not fail me.
— Grant
The words blurred before Delaney’s eyes. The room began to spin violently.
Grant. Her kind, gentle husband who had died of cancer. The man she had spent years nursing, the man whose loss she had wept over on the frozen steps of a church. He hadn't been an innocent businessman. He had been a criminal, a thief laundering illicit drugs through the Bellandi family’s shipping empire.
And Isabella—Rocco’s late wife—hadn't been a tragic victim of fate. She had been Grant’s accomplice. Perhaps even his lover.
The entire foundation of Delaney’s life crumbled into dust in a single second. The Ashfords hadn't thrown her out because she couldn't have children. They had thrown her out because she was a liability, because she knew nothing, and because they wanted to strip her of any legal protection before the truth came out. They had systematically isolated her, frozen her bank accounts, and forced her into homelessness to ensure her silence, assuming she would eventually succumb to the winter or leave Boston entirely.
"What are you doing in here?"
A voice like cracking thunder shattered the silence of the room.
Delaney gasped, dropping the letter. She looked up to see Rocco standing in the doorway. His face was a mask of absolute, terrifying rage. His eyes were completely black, his jaw clenched so tightly the muscles in his neck strained.
He marched into the room, his large hand snapping out to grab her by the arm, pulling her roughly to her feet. "I gave you three rules, Delaney. I told you never to open this door. Who gave you permission to violate my home?"
Delaney didn't cry out from his grip. She didn't flinch away. She looked up at him, tears streaming down her pale cheeks, her voice a broken, ragged whisper.
"She knew him, Rocco," Delaney sobbed, pointing to the paper on the floor. "Your wife knew my husband. They were ruining us. They were ruining all of us."
May you like
Rocco’s grip tightened for a fraction of a second, then froze. His eyes shifted from Delaney’s tear-streaked face down to the crisp white paper lying on the Persian rug. Slowly, slowly, his hand released her arm.
He reached down and picked up the letter.
