Chapter 1 - The Ghost in the PortfolioThe rain over Manhattan was relentless, slicking the dark asphalt outside the Moretti Tower into a mirror that reflected endless ribbons of red tail-lights. I sat behind my walnut desk, the single architectural marvel of a room that commanded a view of the entire financial district, yet felt entirely hollow.
Three days had passed since Patricia Holloway’s phone call. Three days since I stared at an empty closet in a penthouse that suddenly felt like a tomb.
Marco stood near the floor-to-ceiling glass, his tailored charcoal suit accentuating his rigid posture. As my chief fixer and head of corporate security, Marco was a man who lived in the gray areas of the law. He could trace an offshore bank account in the Caymans or make an embarrassing Bloomberg exposé vanish before the morning markets opened. But today, even Marco looked hesitant.
"You’re heading north, Dominic?" Marco asked, not turning around. "Private jet is fueled. Flight clearance to Bangor International is filed under a shell company. No press, no public flight logs."
"I have to, Marco," I said, my voice hoarse from lack of sleep. I looked down at the physical dossier Marco had managed to assemble. It was thin, almost insultingly brief for a woman married to a man who controlled billions. "Whitman & Tide. Registered in Portland two months ago. A design studio focusing on maritime restoration and historical conservation. Tell me how my wife—a woman who didn't even have a personal checkbook without my signature—managed to set up an LLC without my knowledge."
Marco finally turned, adjusting his cufflinks. "She didn't use your lawyers, Dominic. She used a small-town practice in Ellsworth. A lawyer named Julian Vance. Old school, completely off the corporate grid. Claire liquidated her personal trust assets—the independent portfolio her grandfather left her back in Ohio. It wasn't much compared to Moretti Holdings, about four hundred thousand dollars. But in Maine? That’s an empire."
I gripped the edge of my desk, the polished wood cold beneath my fingers. "Four hundred thousand dollars. She lived in a penthouse worth twenty million. She wore diamonds that could fund a municipal budget. And she walked away with four hundred grand and a handful of seashells."
"Because she didn't want your money," Marco said bluntly, stepping closer. "She wanted out. And Dominic, you need to understand something before you land in Maine. Patricia Holloway wasn't just warning you about legal boundaries. She was protecting you from yourself. If you storm up there with your security detail and your usual corporate dominance, you’re going to shatter whatever microscopic chance you have of a conversation."
"I'm not going to intimidate her," I snapped, standing up so fast my leather chair rolled back and slammed into the glass wall. "I'm going to bring my wife home."
"She’s not your wife anymore," Marco reminded me, his voice dangerously steady. "The decree was signed by a judge in family court six weeks ago. You were legally single when you woke up in Vanessa’s bed."
The words hit like a physical blow. Vanessa. The mistake of a lonely, drunken midnight that I already deeply regretted. She was a venture capitalist who ran in my circles—loud, ambitious, and completely devoid of the quiet grace that had anchored my life for over a decade. I hadn't slept with her because I cared; I had slept with her because the silence in my penthouse was deafening, and I was desperate to prove to myself that I was still a living, breathing man.
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Instead, it turned out I was just a ghost haunting a life that had already moved on.
"Get the car," I ordered, buttoning my overcoat. "We're flying to Maine."
