Chapter 7 - The Forgotten MorettiLorenzo Moretti had not spoken his sister’s name in twelve years.
Alessandra.
Three years younger than Lorenzo.
Wild where he was controlled.
Gentle where he was ruthless.
Their mother’s favorite argument and their father’s greatest disappointment.
Alessandra had wanted nothing to do with the family business.
At twenty-two, she left Chicago.
At twenty-four, she stopped answering Lorenzo’s calls.
At twenty-six, she mailed him a letter containing only six words.
If you love me, forget me.
So Lorenzo had.
Or pretended to.
Now she was tied to a bed inside the room where Isabella died.
“How did they find her?” Marco asked.
“I don’t know.”
Lorenzo paced the laboratory.
Elena watched him.
He looked less like a don and more like a brother who had suddenly discovered a wound he thought had scarred over was still bleeding.
“We’re going back,” Lorenzo said.
Dominic shook his head.
“No.”
Lorenzo turned.
“That wasn’t a vote.”
“The message says alone.”
“I have ignored instructions before.”
“That’s why you’ve been shot twice in a month.”
Marco muttered, “He has a point.”
Lorenzo looked at him.
Marco raised his hands.
“Still loyal.”
Elena approached.
“Why did Alessandra leave?”
Lorenzo hesitated.
“My father wanted her to marry the son of a New York family.”
“And?”
“She refused.”
“That’s all?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
Lorenzo looked away.
“My father locked her in the east wing for three days.”
Elena’s expression hardened.
“You let him?”
“I was twenty-five.”
“You were already dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“Then why?”
Because I wanted his approval.
Lorenzo did not say the words.
He did not need to.
Elena saw them anyway.
“She escaped,” he continued. “My mother helped her. I found out later.”
“You never looked for her?”
“Of course I did.”
“She asked you to forget her.”
“So I stopped.”
Elena crossed her arms.
“That doesn’t sound like you.”
“I thought leaving her alone was protection.”
Dominic spoke from behind them.
“Sometimes men tell themselves abandonment is protection because it hurts less than admitting they chose power.”
Lorenzo turned.
“I am getting very tired of your wisdom.”
“Good.”
Dominic grabbed his coat.
“Anger keeps you awake.”
They returned to Chicago in separate vehicles using fake passports and secondary roads.
By the time they reached the outskirts, it was nearly midnight.
The city skyline rose ahead like a familiar threat.
Lorenzo stared at it.
Home.
Empire.
Prison.
All three words meant the same thing now.
They established a temporary base in an old Moretti-owned hotel scheduled for demolition.
Dominic spread blueprints of St. Jude’s across a table.
“Hospital has three entrances, service tunnels, ambulance access, rooftop landing pad.”
Lorenzo pointed to Isabella’s room.
“Seventh floor.”
“Too obvious.”
“They want me there.”
“Exactly.”
Elena examined the building plans.
“What’s below it?”
“Sixth floor. Oncology.”
“No. Directly below the bed.”
Dominic zoomed in.
A maintenance shaft.
Elena remembered the safe house.
“Ventilation?”
Lorenzo gave her a look.
“No chemicals.”
She frowned.
“I wasn’t going to suggest chemicals.”
“You were absolutely going to suggest chemicals.”
“A little.”
Marco smiled.
Dominic traced the shaft.
“We can access the wall cavity from the fifth-floor service room.”
Lorenzo shook his head.
“I’m walking through the front entrance.”
Everyone objected.
He held up a hand.
“They expect me. If I don’t appear, they hurt Alessandra.”
“And if you do?”
“They focus on me.”
Dominic understood.
“While we come from below.”
“Yes.”
Elena said, “I’m going with Dominic.”
“No.”
She stared at Lorenzo.
He corrected himself.
“I strongly object.”
“Better.”
“Still no.”
“She knows hospital layouts,” Dominic said.
“She’s also the reason Meridian wants this meeting.”
“Which is why they won’t expect her to enter voluntarily.”
Lorenzo looked at Elena.
“No heroics.”
She almost smiled.
“Coming from you?”
He stepped closer.
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
For one second they forgot everyone else.
Lorenzo touched her face.
“I just got you back.”
“You never had me.”
He absorbed that.
Elena softened.
“But I came back.”
At 2:13 a.m., Lorenzo Moretti entered St. Jude’s through the emergency entrance wearing no visible weapon.
The hospital was nearly empty.
A receptionist looked up.
Then recognized him.
Fear drained the color from her face.
“Seventh floor,” Lorenzo said.
She pointed toward the elevators without speaking.
He entered alone.
The doors closed.
He watched the numbers rise.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
When the doors opened, every light in the corridor was off except one.
Room 714.
His mother’s room.
Lorenzo walked toward it.
The smell hit him first.
Antiseptic.
Plastic.
Death.
He entered.
Alessandra sat on the bed.
Her wrists were tied.
Blood streaked one side of her face.
Her eyes widened.
“Lorenzo?”
He stopped.
Twelve years vanished.
She looked older.
Stronger.
But she still had Isabella’s eyes.
“Hello, little sister.”
Alessandra started crying.
“You idiot.”
He almost laughed.
“That seems to be the family consensus.”
A man stepped from behind the curtain.
Dr. Nathaniel Thorne.
Lorenzo’s expression changed instantly.
“You.”
Thorne held a suppressed pistol.
“Me.”
“You should have stayed in Toronto.”
“I was never in Toronto.”
“Decoy.”
“Very good.”
Thorne looked older than his hospice photograph but remarkably calm.
“You’ve caused significant problems.”
“You killed my mother.”
“Your mother killed herself. We merely accepted the invitation.”
Lorenzo moved forward.
Thorne raised the gun.
“Stop.”
Lorenzo stopped.
“Untie my sister.”
“Give me Elena.”
“No.”
Thorne smiled.
“That was fast.”
“You could offer me this entire hospital and I’d still say no.”
Alessandra stared at her brother.
Something about his answer surprised her.
Thorne noticed.
“Love has made you inconvenient.”
“It usually does.”
Thorne reached toward a medical pump beside Alessandra.
Lorenzo went rigid.
“What is that?”
“Potassium chloride.”
Alessandra’s breathing quickened.
“Very poetic, don’t you think?”
“Touch the pump and I’ll kill you.”
“You’re unarmed.”
Lorenzo smiled slightly.
“People keep making that mistake.”
Below them, Elena and Dominic entered the maintenance shaft.
The crawlspace was narrow and hot.
“You really think he’s unarmed?” Elena whispered.
“No.”
“Me neither.”
Dominic found the access panel beneath room 714.
“Ready?”
Elena nodded.
They pushed upward.
Meanwhile Thorne continued.
“Isabella believed she could dismantle Meridian by exposing names. What she never understood is that systems survive people.”
“She understood more than you.”
“She understood enough to die.”
Lorenzo’s eyes moved toward Alessandra.
She was staring at something behind Thorne.
A reflection.
Lorenzo followed it subtly.
The metal cabinet door reflected the floor.
A panel moved.
Elena.
Good girl.
Thorne stepped toward Lorenzo.
“Tell me where the blood cipher is.”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe Isabella never explained it?”
“She didn’t.”
“Dominic Caruso did.”
Lorenzo’s expression gave away nothing.
Thorne smiled.
“Your silence confirms he’s alive.”
From beneath the bed, Elena reached upward and touched Alessandra’s ankle.
Alessandra almost screamed.
Elena pressed one finger to her lips.
Alessandra understood.
Lorenzo needed distraction.
He stepped toward Thorne.
“You want the cipher?”
“Yes.”
“Then ask me why my mother chose Elena.”
Thorne frowned.
“Why?”
“Because Elena is better than all of us.”
Elena froze under the bed.
Lorenzo continued.
“She had every reason to walk away. Instead she went to my mother’s grave. She could have left Lucas at the docks and saved herself. She didn’t. She could have abandoned me bleeding in Wisconsin. She didn’t.”
Thorne laughed.
“You’re confessing feelings at a hostage negotiation?”
“I’m explaining your mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“You think leverage controls people.”
Lorenzo smiled.
“But some people become dangerous when you give them something worth losing.”
Elena cut Alessandra’s wrist restraints.
Thorne heard the snap.
He turned.
Alessandra lunged.
The gun fired.
Lorenzo attacked.
He struck Thorne with enough force to throw both men into the wall.
The IV pump toppled.
Elena pulled Alessandra from the bed.
“Move!”
Dominic climbed through the opening holding a gun.
Thorne kicked Lorenzo away and fired.
Dominic returned fire.
Glass exploded.
Hospital alarms began screaming.
Thorne ran into the corridor.
Lorenzo grabbed the fallen pistol.
“Stay with her!”
He chased him.
Thorne sprinted toward the emergency stairwell.
Lorenzo followed.
They descended two floors.
Thorne fired backward.
Lorenzo ducked.
The bullet struck the handrail.
On the fourth-floor landing, Thorne stopped.
He held a small device.
A detonator.
Lorenzo remembered Rossi.
“You people need new tricks.”
Thorne smiled.
“This isn’t for the hospital.”
“What is it?”
“Your mansion.”
Lorenzo’s smile vanished.
Thorne pressed the button.
Miles away, a device hidden inside the Moretti estate transmitted encrypted files from the mansion servers.
Not an explosion.
A theft.
Thorne laughed.
“You thought we wanted the ledger.”
Lorenzo understood.
“No.”
“We wanted your network.”
He stepped backward.
“While you were rescuing your sister, Meridian just inherited the Moretti empire.”
Thorne threw himself through the emergency exit.
Lorenzo followed.
But by the time he reached the alley, a motorcycle was already disappearing into the night.
Marco called.
“Boss.”
His voice sounded horrified.
“Everything’s gone.”
“What?”
“Accounts. Shipping codes. Safe houses. Contacts. Every encrypted server was wiped.”
Lorenzo stared into the darkness.
Meridian had not attacked his empire.
They had stolen it.
When he returned upstairs, Alessandra was sitting beside Elena.
Their eyes met.
Lorenzo expected anger.
Instead Alessandra stood and embraced him.
For several seconds he could not move.
Then he held his sister.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“For what?”
“Everything.”
She pulled back.
“You can apologize later.”
She wiped blood from her cheek.
“Right now, I want to know who the hell Elena is.”
Elena smiled awkwardly.
“That’s complicated.”
Alessandra looked at Lorenzo.
Then Elena.
Then back at Lorenzo.
Her eyes widened.
“Oh.”
Lorenzo frowned.
“What?”
His sister grinned despite everything.
“You’re in love.”
Nobody spoke.
May you like
Alessandra laughed.
“Oh, this is going to be fun.”
