When The Don's Canary Flew Away
I was the canary in a gilded cage, a possession of the Don, Dante Moretti. In the seventh year of my captivity, he finally tired of me.
He turned his affections to a younger, more alluring dancer.
I suggested we part ways, but he just smirked.
"Elara, I've owned you for seven years. You wouldn't last a day out there," he sneered. "Leave me? Go where? Besides, your father... without my medical equipment, how much longer do you think he has?"
Staring at the man before me, I was transported back to that rainy night seven years ago.
Back then, to force me into submission, he had framed my father, ruining him and leaving our family with a mountain of debt. The shock put my father in a coma.
Buried under exorbitant medical bills, I had no choice but to accept Dante's obsessive control.
Dante took my bowed head and silence as surrender.
He stood, announcing he was off to pick up his "little dancer" and ordering me to clear my things out of the master suite immediately.
I gave a silent nod. The moment the door clicked shut behind him, I dialed the number for the underworld's "cleaner."
"Silas, I'll sell you our family's ledger for fifty million. But I need more than just money. I need you to make my father and me disappear."