Chapter 4 - THE WEB OF VENGEANCEThe name Moretti hung in the subterranean air like a death sentence.
In Chicago’s underworld, the Valente and Moretti families maintained a fragile, bloody stalemate. A war between them hadn't broken out in over a decade. But if Moretti had managed to infiltrate the Valente household, using a naive, desperate girl with a dying heart to poison and abandon an infant heir, it meant the stalemate was over.
And the entire city was about to burn.
"I swear to God, Mr. Valente, I didn't know it was a baby!" Clara wailed, tears streaming down her pale cheeks as she shook violently against the ropes. "A man in a black suit approached me outside the dialysis clinic three days ago. He said... he said if I delivered a package to the Valente estate, I’d get enough cash upfront to pay for my heart surgery in full. We were running out of time, Elena! The doctors said you couldn't raise the money fast enough!"
My heart stopped. The room tilted.
She had done it for me.
To save my life, she had unknowingly walked straight into a mafia crossfire, becoming an unwitting pawn in an assassination plot against the most dangerous child in Illinois.
"You fool," I whispered, hot tears spilling over my own cheeks as I looked at my fragile, terrified sister. "Clara, do you have any idea what you've done?"
"Oh, she knows precisely what she’s done," a cold, smooth voice echoed from the doorway.
Everyone turned.
Karen Mitchell, the nanny who had screamed 'She’s throwing Emma away!' moments after I pulled the baby from the dumpster, walked into the bunker. But gone was the trembling, panicked employee. Now, she wore a chilling, confident smirk, her designer blouse neatly pressed, holding a digital tablet in her hand.
"Karen," Adrian’s voice dropped an octave, dripping with sudden, deadly realization. "You were supposed to be locked in the secure holding quarters."
"I was, Mr. Valente," Karen said smoothly, stepping right up to Adrian's desk and tapping the screen of her tablet. "Until I realized your security system was still recording data on an independent local backup server. The same server I reprogrammed three weeks ago."
Adrian’s expression shifted. The obsidian facade cracked, replaced by a flash of absolute fury.
"What did you do?" Adrian hissed, taking a slow step toward her.
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"I didn't just let Moretti's men into the nursery, Adrian," Karen laughed softly, a sound like breaking glass. "I invited them. I sedated your precious little daughter myself. And I watched every single second of your precious empire begin to crumble from the inside out."
Before Adrian could even twitch toward his weapon, Karen tapped the tablet a final time, and every single monitor on the wall flickered, flashing a live feed of the front gates.
