Chapter 9 - The Moretti HeirChloe held the ring between two fingers.
Victor Vale watched her.
Dominic stood three feet away with his weapon raised.
Behind Chloe, Elaine struggled to breathe.
The parking garage smelled of exhaust, concrete dust, and smoke drifting down from the upper floors.
Victor held a detonator.
Maybe real.
Maybe fake.
Chloe could not gamble hundreds of lives on the difference.
“Put the gun down,” Victor told Dominic.
Dominic did not move.
“Dom,” Chloe said.
“No.”
“Put it down.”
His eyes shifted to her.
“Chloe.”
“If he’s telling the truth—”
“He isn’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know Victor.”
Victor smiled.
“You knew your father too.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
That was the problem.
Trust had been weaponized so many times nobody knew which instincts belonged to truth anymore.
Chloe looked at Victor.
“You want the ring?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It controls the trust.”
“What trust?”
Victor laughed softly.
“Carlo never told his son.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
Victor continued.
“The Moretti businesses, properties, investment holdings, voting shares, political foundations. Legal assets worth nearly four billion dollars.”
Chloe stared.
“And illegal?”
Victor’s smile widened.
“More.”
She almost laughed.
Twenty-four hours earlier she had worried about fourteen thousand dollars in hospital bills.
Now a psychopath was threatening a hospital because she apparently controlled billions.
“Why does the ring matter?”
“It contains an encrypted signature chip.”
Elaine whispered, “Along with Isabella’s genetic authorization.”
Victor nodded.
“Beautiful system. Carlo created it because he believed Isabella would eventually obey him.”
“But she died.”
“Yes.”
“And it transferred to me.”
“Eventually.”
Dominic looked at Elaine.
“At twenty-four.”
Elaine nodded.
“The same birthday trigger.”
Chloe closed her fingers around the ring.
Victor stepped closer.
“Give it to me.”
“And then?”
“You disappear.”
Dominic laughed.
Victor ignored him.
“I’ll provide money, a new identity, anywhere you want.”
“You tried to kill me.”
“Never.”
Chloe stared.
“The restaurant shooter?”
“Gabriel.”
Everyone looked toward Gabriel.
Gabriel raised both hands.
“I did not hire Evan Cole.”
Victor smiled.
“Didn’t you?”
Gabriel’s face changed.
Victor continued.
“Your father’s old account. Bennett Medical Holdings. Convenient.”
Gabriel looked at Dominic.
“He’s lying.”
“You invaded my home,” Dominic said.
“To get Chloe before Victor.”
“Maybe.”
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
Victor was doing it again.
Breaking trust.
Chloe suddenly understood.
Every conversation revolved around proving which person had betrayed which.
Victor did not need everyone to believe him.
He needed them to doubt one another.
Chloe looked at Dominic.
He was watching Gabriel.
Suspicious.
Leo too.
Victor smiled.
Winning.
“Dominic.”
Chloe’s voice cut through.
He looked at her.
“Trust me.”
Something changed.
He lowered his weapon.
Victor’s smile widened.
“Wise.”
Chloe stepped forward.
“Ring first,” he said.
“Detonator first.”
Victor laughed.
“You’re negotiating with me?”
“Yes.”
“You’re twenty-four.”
“And you’ve spent twenty-four years trying to find me. Apparently age isn’t everything.”
Leo coughed.
Dominic’s mouth twitched.
Victor stopped smiling.
“Throw the ring.”
“Show me the explosives.”
He tapped his phone.
A camera feed appeared.
A device beneath a structural support.
Red light.
Timer inactive.
Real enough.
Chloe nodded.
“Okay.”
Dominic’s voice became low.
“Chloe.”
She looked at him.
He understood something in her face.
Or trusted that she had a plan.
She threw the ring.
Victor reached.
Gabriel moved.
Not toward Victor.
Toward the lights.
He fired once.
Darkness.
Leo lunged.
Dominic grabbed Chloe.
Gunfire erupted.
Victor’s detonator clicked.
Nothing happened.
Chloe smiled in the darkness.
Victor shouted.
“What did you do?”
“The ring.”
Dominic pulled Chloe behind a concrete pillar.
“What?”
“Fake.”
He stared.
“When?”
She held up the real ring.
“Elaine gave me two.”
Elaine laughed weakly from behind Leo’s protection.
Victor screamed.
The sound was almost satisfying.
His men fired blindly.
Dominic returned fire.
Gabriel tackled one.
Leo disarmed another.
Victor ran toward the service tunnel.
Chloe saw him.
“He’s leaving!”
Dominic followed.
“No!”
He stopped.
Chloe had learned something about herself.
She hated when Dominic rushed into gunfire.
Apparently that feeling went both ways.
Victor disappeared.
But the hospital remained standing.
The police arrived seven minutes later.
Not ordinary patrol officers.
Federal agents.
Dominic looked at Leo.
“You called the FBI?”
Leo looked offended.
“I have standards.”
Elaine raised her hand weakly.
“I did.”
Everyone stared.
She smiled.
“I’ve had three months in Montreal. I wasn’t knitting.”
The lead agent was Special Agent Rebecca Sloan.
Fifty.
No patience.
No visible fear of Dominic.
That impressed Chloe.
Sloan approached.
“Mr. Moretti.”
“Agent.”
“Still committing felonies?”
“Not this morning.”
“Disappointing.”
Her gaze moved to Chloe.
“Ms. Bennett.”
“Apparently.”
Sloan had been working with Elaine.
The Moretti Blood archive contained enough evidence to dismantle Victor’s network.
But they needed all fragments.
“Vale owns people in federal agencies too,” Sloan said. “We’ve kept this operation compartmentalized.”
Dominic looked at her.
“You trust your people?”
“No.”
He nodded.
Chloe almost laughed.
Apparently paranoia created friendships.
They moved Elaine to a secure federal medical facility.
This time Chloe refused to leave her bedside until Elaine slept.
Dominic waited in the hallway.
When Chloe eventually emerged, dawn was beginning again.
It felt like she had lived a year in two days.
Dominic handed her coffee.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
They stood silently.
Then Chloe said, “Four billion?”
“Approximately.”
She stared at him.
“You knew?”
“Not the trust.”
“You run the organization but technically I own it?”
“Apparently.”
She sipped coffee.
“So you work for me.”
Dominic looked horrified.
Chloe smiled for the first time all day.
“I’m going to enjoy this.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You said you valued accuracy.”
“I’m reconsidering.”
She laughed.
Then quiet settled.
Dominic leaned against the wall.
“What happens when this is over?”
The question surprised her.
“You mean if we survive?”
“When.”
She looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
“You could leave.”
“Yes.”
“Anywhere.”
“Yes.”
“With that trust, you’d never have to work again.”
Chloe thought of The Brass Lantern.
Her apartment.
Elaine.
The life she thought she had.
“Would you?”
Dominic frowned.
“Would I what?”
“Leave.”
“This is my city.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
He looked toward the hospital window.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because leaving doesn’t erase what I am.”
Chloe studied him.
“What are you?”
His eyes returned to hers.
“You already said it. Mafia boss.”
“No.”
His expression changed.
“I said people call you that.”
“What do you call me now?”
The hallway became very quiet.
Chloe thought about him covering her during gunfire.
Holding her hand during Isabella’s tape.
Ordering her around.
Listening when she refused.
The violence.
The tenderness he hid like evidence.
“A complicated pain in the ass.”
Dominic smiled.
A real smile.
It transformed him.
Chloe forgot what she was going to say.
He noticed.
“That’s disappointing.”
“What?”
“I thought I’d get something more flattering.”
“Don’t push it.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth.
Chloe’s pulse changed.
So did his.
They were too close.
Neither moved.
Then Leo’s voice came down the hallway.
“I hate everything about this.”
They separated.
Leo approached holding a tablet.
“Did I interrupt?”
“Yes,” Dominic said.
“No,” Chloe said.
Leo looked between them.
“Excellent.”
He handed Dominic the tablet.
“We found Russo.”
The mood changed instantly.
“Where?”
“South Station.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Bring him.”
Leo’s expression hardened.
“He already surrendered.”
Dominic frowned.
“That’s not like Russo.”
“He wants protection.”
“From Victor.”
“No.”
Leo looked at Chloe.
“From Gabriel.”
Gabriel had disappeared from the hospital garage during the chaos.
Again.
Chloe sighed.
“Does your cousin ever stay where we put him?”
“No.”
Russo arrived thirty minutes later.
Federal agents handled the interrogation.
Dominic, Chloe, and Leo watched behind glass.
Russo looked destroyed.
His hands shook.
He admitted opening the penthouse garage.
Admitted helping Victor track Rosa.
Admitted giving information for nine years.
“Why?” Sloan asked.
Victor had photographs of Russo’s daughter from an affair twenty years earlier.
He threatened her.
The girl had no idea who Russo was.
“He said if I didn’t help, she died.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
Chloe looked at him.
Another person forced to choose love under threat.
Victor’s favorite weapon.
“Did Gabriel hire Evan Cole?” Sloan asked.
Russo shook his head.
“Victor.”
Gabriel had told the truth.
“Where is Vale?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where would he go?”
Russo hesitated.
Then looked at the mirror.
He knew Dominic was behind it.
“Carlo’s mausoleum.”
Chloe’s heart skipped.
The fifth fragment.
“Why?”
“Vale knows it’s there.”
Dominic turned.
They moved immediately.
The Moretti family mausoleum stood in an old cemetery north of Boston.
Rain had returned.
Federal agents surrounded the perimeter quietly.
Dominic, Chloe, Leo, and Sloan entered.
Carlo Moretti’s marble tomb dominated the center.
The lid had already been opened.
Empty.
No body.
No fragment.
Only a message painted inside.
DOMINIC KNOWS WHERE THE BODY IS.
Chloe turned.
Dominic’s face went pale.
“What does that mean?”
Leo looked at him.
“Dom?”
Dominic stared at the empty tomb.
“I moved my father.”
“When?”
“Twelve years ago.”
“Why?”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“Because his grave was being targeted.”
“Where?”
He looked at Chloe.
“Under Isabella’s memorial.”
Gabriel’s voice came from behind them.
“Exactly.”
Everyone turned.
Gabriel stood at the entrance.
Gun in hand.
Blood on his coat.
Sloan raised her weapon.
Gabriel ignored her.
“Victor figured it out too.”
Dominic stepped toward him.
“Where is he?”
Gabriel looked at Chloe.
“Already there.”
“Where?”
Dominic answered.
“North End.”
An abandoned chapel beneath the old Moretti social club.
Isabella’s memorial had been built where Dominic believed she disappeared.
The irony made Chloe sick.
Gabriel lowered his gun.
“We have maybe twenty minutes.”
Dominic looked at him.
“Why come back?”
Gabriel’s face changed.
“My father’s fragment showed me something.”
“What?”
Gabriel handed Isabella’s ledger to Chloe.
Inside was a folded document.
An old financial authorization.
Victor Vale’s signature.
Payment to the warehouse where Andrew Bennett died.
Payment to the hospital administrator who delayed Isabella’s surgery.
And another payment.
Twelve years later.
The day Carlo Moretti died.
Victor had killed them all.
Gabriel looked at Dominic.
“You were right.”
“About?”
“There are things more important than winning.”
Dominic stared at him.
Gabriel looked toward Chloe.
“Family.”
They reached the chapel sixteen minutes later.
The doors were open.
Inside, Isabella’s memorial had been smashed.
Carlo’s hidden coffin lay exposed beneath it.
Victor stood beside the coffin.
He held the final archive fragment.
And a gun.
But he was not alone.
Elaine sat beside him.
Chloe stopped.
Impossible.
“She was under federal protection.”
Victor smiled.
“I told you. I own people everywhere.”
Elaine’s face was bruised.
Her oxygen tube gone.
She struggled for breath.
May you like
Victor pressed the gun against her head.
“Now,” he said, looking at Chloe, “let’s finish what your grandfather started.”
