Down in the subterranean wine cellar, Brody shivered violently in a damp nylon jacket. His greasy hair was matted with melting sleet, his eyes darting frantically around the rows of vintage French wines and the two armed guards standing silently in the shadows.

When the heavy steel door swung open, Lorenzo Moretti stepped in, wearing a crisp charcoal suit, his hands tucked casually into his pockets.

"You Brody?" Lorenzo asked mildly.

Brody tried to sneer, puffing out his thin chest. "Yeah, I’m Brody. Who the hell are you? The butler? Look, pal, I know Nora works here. She’s carrying my kid. By law, her earnings are joint domestic assets. You hand her over and give me twenty grand for back-support, or I go to the press and tell them the Morettis are harboring an illegal runaway."

Lorenzo walked slowly toward the table, pulled out a heavy oak chair, and sat down. He pulled a gold lighter from his pocket and flicked it, watching the small flame dance.

"Fascinating," Lorenzo murmured. "You abandoned a pregnant nineteen-year-old girl in an unheated apartment in the dead of winter. You left her with sixty thousand in gambling markers. And now you drive through a blizzard to sell her child."

"It's my baby!" Brody yelled, his voice echoing off the brick vaults. "I have rights!"

Lorenzo closed the lighter with a metallic snap.

"You had rights," Lorenzo said smoothly, "until three hours ago. You see, Brody, by tomorrow morning, the birth certificate of that child will bear a very specific surname. Moretti. My father has decided to adopt Nora as his legal daughter. Which makes that unborn girl my niece."

Brody’s mouth fell open. "You're... you're shitting me. She's a maid!"

"She is royalty in this house," Lorenzo said, leaning forward, his gray eyes flashing with lethal intent. "And you are an insect who has crawled into the spider's web."

Lorenzo nodded to Silvio.

The bodyguard stepped forward, grabbing Brody by the scruff of his neck, and forced his face down onto the cold tasting table. Silvio slammed a heavy legal document and a ballpoint pen in front of him.

"You have two choices, Brody," Lorenzo whispered, his voice hovering directly above the trembling man's ear. "Option one: You sign this full relinquishment of parental rights, accept five thousand dollars in cash, and get on a one-way bus to San Diego. If your shadow ever falls on the state of New York again, Marco will cut your tongue out and feed it to my father's mastiffs."

Brody swallowed hard, whimpering against the wood. "What... what's option two?"

Lorenzo smiled—a cold, terrifying grin that stopped Brody’s heart.

"Option two is that the snow outside is very deep, and the wolves in these mountains haven't eaten in three days."

Brody grabbed the pen before Lorenzo could even finish the sentence.