Chapter 34 - The Sins of the Fathers
Back inside the fortified sub-level of the Moretti Tower, the tension was so suffocating that the armed guards stationed outside the war room barely dared to breathe. Medical staff had patched Dominic’s shoulder and cleaned the glass lacerations on Vincent’s brow, but no one dared speak to the billionaire.
Vincent stood before an array of digital monitors, each displaying historical archives, banking registries, and classified real estate manifests dating back to the late 1980s.
Emma stood across from him, shivering despite the dry tactical sweater Dominic had given her. "You owe me an explanation, Vincent. Right now. You said your mother knew who I was. What does that mean?"
Vincent didn't look at her immediately. He stared at a black-and-white photograph on the center screen. It showed three people standing outside a modest diner in South Chicago thirty years ago: a young Vincent Moretti, his father Julian Moretti, and an older woman with gentle eyes and a warm, working-class smile—Emma's grandmother, the very woman Victoria Sterling had tried to strike in the ballroom on the night this nightmare began.
"My mother, Helena, was born into the De Rossi syndicate—old European aristocracy whose wealth was built on blood, smuggling, and corruption," Vincent said, his voice flat and detached. "When my father married her, he thought he was uniting empires. Instead, he realized he had invited a monster into his home. When Helena tried to liquidate thousands of working-class families across Chicago by poisoning the municipal water contract for a land-grab scheme, my father rebelled."
Emma took a step back, her eyes widening. "My grandmother... she worked for the city council back then."
"Your grandmother was the chief auditor," Vincent revealed, turning to face Emma. "She discovered Helena’s forged environmental reports. Helena sent assassins to burn your family’s home to the ground. My father intercepted the hit team. He saved your grandmother’s life, hidden her identity, and used her testimony to dismantle Helena's syndicate. But to keep you and your grandmother safe, and to stop Helena’s family in Italy from retaliating, my father staged Helena’s death in Switzerland. He locked her away in a maximum-security black-site sanatorium."
"And Arthur Sterling?" Emma whispered, horror knotting her stomach.
"Arthur was Helena’s lover," Vincent said coldly. "He was her pawn on the inside. Arthur stayed quiet for thirty years, waiting for the right moment to seize the Moretti empire from my father, and then from me. But Arthur failed to crush me. When Arthur went to federal prison, Helena realized he was a liability who would trade her secrets for a plea deal. So she broke out of whatever hole she was in, executed Arthur, and now she is finishing the war she started three decades ago."
"And Leo?" Emma demanded, tears burning in her eyes. "Why did she take my nephew?!"
"Because your grandmother left the original ledger—the De Rossi blood ledger containing the offshore identities, numbered accounts, and murder contracts of Helena’s entire cabal—in a trust," Dominic chimed in from the console. "A trust that can only be unlocked by a genetic heir of your bloodline."
Emma’s breath hitched. "They need my blood... or Leo's."
"They don't need you dead, Emma," Vincent said, his eyes darkening to a shade of black that promised total annihilation. "They need the boy's DNA to seize billions in offshore assets, and once Helena has that money, she will burn this city to the ground. But she forgot one fundamental truth."
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Vincent walked over to the armory wall, punching a code into a biometric vault that opened with a hiss of pneumatic pressure. Inside lay heavy body armor, customized automatic weaponry, and tactical gear bearing no insignia.
"She made this personal," Vincent said, racketing the slide of an assault rifle. "We are going to war."
