Chapter 2 - The Return to the Citadel
The private elevator of the penthouse at the Ritz-Carlton rose silently toward the top floor.
Leo, Julian, Mateo, and Lucas stood in a neat row in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass, staring out at the sparkling grid of the Boston skyline with wide, awe-struck eyes.
"Is that a bridge?" Julian asked, pressing his nose against the glass.
"That's the Tobin Bridge," I answered, stepping beside him. I offered him a glass of fresh orange juice that my staff had rushed up three minutes after our arrival. "I own three of the shipping docks beneath it."
"Are you a prince?" Mateo asked, taking the glass with both hands.
A faint, sad smile touched my lips. "No, buddy. Just a man who should have been here six years ago."
In the living room behind us, Clara sat on the velvet sofa, a cup of hot tea resting untouched on the mahogany table in front of her. Her posture was tense, her arms wrapped around herself as if bracing for an impact.
I signaled to two of my private security detail standing near the doors. "Take the boys to the media room down the hall. Put on whatever movie they want and make sure there are chef-prepared snacks. No one enters or leaves this floor without my explicit clearance."
"Yes, Mr. Moretti," the guards replied, gently ushering the four energetic boys toward the private screening theater.
Once the double doors closed behind them, the massive penthouse fell into a heavy, suffocating silence.
I poured two fingers of single-malt scotch into a crystal tumbler, drained it in one swallow, and set the glass down. I walked over to the sofa and sat down across from Clara.
"Why didn't you come to me when you found out you were pregnant?" I asked quietly.
Clara looked up, her amber eyes burning with old, unhealed fury. "Come to you? Dominic, six years ago you were still taking orders from your father, Anthony! The night before I left, Anthony met me at my apartment. He laid out crime scene photos of people your family had 'handled.' He told me that if I told you about the positive pregnancy test, he would make sure you took a bullet during your next territory dispute and pin it on the Irish syndicate!"
My jaw clenched so hard a sharp pain shot up my temple. Anthony Moretti—my own father—had manipulated every piece of my life. He had convinced me Clara had simply grown tired of my dark world and packed her bags. For six years, I had believed the only woman I ever loved had abandoned me because she couldn't stomach who I was.
"He lied to you, Clara," I said, my voice low and thick with suppressed rage. "And he lied to me. He used my love for you as a leash to keep me under his thumb."
"It didn't matter if it was a lie, Dominic!" Clara cried out, her voice trembling. "I had four tiny heartbeats inside me! I couldn't risk your life, and I couldn't risk theirs! I moved to a quiet town in Vermont, took an administrative job at a local library under my maiden name, and raised them alone!"
I closed my eyes. The image of Clara—pregnant with quadruplets, living in a small rented house in Vermont, managing four infants without a mother, a husband, or financial help—tore through my chest far deeper than any knife an enemy had ever slipped between my ribs.
"I have fifty million dollars in private liquidity, Clara," I whispered, reaching across the table to grab her trembling hands. "I have estates in Italy, holdings in London, and enough firepower in this city to flatten anyone who looks at you wrong. And yet, the four most important people in the world were eating cheap cereal while I drank two-thousand-dollar wine."
"Dominic..."
"No," I cut her off firmly, squeezing her hands. "Listen to me. Anthony isn't the boss anymore. Two years ago, I forced him into retired status. He lives at the family estate in Wellesley under constant guard supervision. He has no authority over the Moretti family operations. I hold the keys."
Before Clara could answer, the private line on my desk began to chime.
It was the secure red landline—the one reserved exclusively for high-tier family emergencies.
I stood up, walked over to the desk, and picked up the receiver.
"Dominic," my father’s raspy, tobacco-aged voice came through the speaker. He sounded furious, his tone laced with thirty years of unyielding arrogance. "What is the meaning of this insolence? The Barrett family is sitting in the conservatory! Sloane is crying! Her father is threatening to cancel our joint port logistics contract!"
"Cancel it," I said flatly, leaning against the desk.
"Are you insane?!" Anthony roared. "That contract secures our northern territory for the next twenty years! You dropped an eighty-million-dollar alliance for what? My men at Back Bay said you walked out of a restaurant with a woman and four street urchins!"
My grip on the receiver tightened until the plastic groaned under the pressure.
"Those 'street urchins', Anthony," I said, my voice dropping into a register so dark and lethal that even Clara stood up from the couch in alarm, "are my sons. My six-year-old quadruplets. The ones you threatened to kill six years ago."
A sudden, dead silence fell over the phone line.
Anthony didn't gasp. He didn't stutters. After three seconds of eerie silence, my father let out a low, cold laugh.
"So... the girl kept them," Anthony murmured smoothly. "Four boys. Four Moretti heirs. That changes things, Dominic. Bring them to the Wellesley estate tonight. We will introduce them to the family council and secure the legacy."
"If you ever speak the word 'heir' regarding my children again," I said, every syllable dripping with absolute, unshakeable finality, "I will burn the Wellesley estate to the ground with you inside it. Stay away from my family, Anthony. Your reign is over."
I slammed the receiver back onto the cradle, shattering the plastic housing.
I looked up at Clara. Her face was pale, her hands clutched over her chest.
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"He knows," she whispered, panic rising in her eyes. "Dominic, he knows about them now. He'll use the family council to try and take them from me! The Moretti family laws—"
"The Moretti family laws are whatever I say they are," I declared, walking back to her and pulling her tightly into my arms, wrapping her in my warmth. "Tomorrow morning, the entire city of Boston will know that Clara Vance is the only woman I will ever answer to, and those four boys are my absolute priority. I am not letting you run again, Clara. And I am not letting them touch my sons."
