Chapter 13 - The Ghost in the Ledger
Dominic didn't answer right away. He pulled out the leather armchair opposite my desk, sat down heavily, and steepled his fingers, staring into the middle distance as if peering through decades of blood and betrayal.
“Five years ago, I thought I could separate my world from my home,” Dominic began, his voice low and raspy. “I married Elena—she was a sweet, innocent architect who knew nothing about the syndicate. When our son was born, I tried to walk away. I tried to hand the keys to my brother, Marcus.”
My blood ran cold. Marcus?
“Marcus?” I repeated. “I thought Isabella was your only family left.”
“Marcus died in the car bombing that killed my wife,” Dominic said grimly, lifting his gaze to meet mine. “Or at least, that’s what the police report said. But three days ago, while reviewing the financial conduits you just audited, I found a series of offshore transfers draining millions from our European accounts—transfers that required a Moretti family biometric override.”
My eyes widened as the puzzle pieces slammed together in my mind. The missing funds. The hacked security grid during Marcone’s attack.
“Marcus isn't dead,” I whispered.
“No,” Dominic said, a dangerous glint entering his dark eyes. “He’s been hiding in plain sight, pulling strings, allied with the very factions I thought I wiped out years ago. He wants the throne back, Elena. And he knows that as long as I have Lorenzo—and as long as I have you—he will never inherit the syndicate.”
The heavy oak doors behind us suddenly clicked.
The library lights flickered and died.
Emergency red strip lighting instantly clicked on, casting a bloody hue across the bookshelves.
Click. Click. Click.
Footsteps approached down the dark hallway—slow, deliberate, and entirely unhurried.
Dominic was out of his chair in a fraction of a second, his Beretta drawn and cocked before the sound of the slide echoed through the quiet room. He shoved me behind his broad frame, his eyes locked on the dark archway.
A figure stepped out of the shadows.
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He wore an expensive charcoal suit that looked identical to Dominic’s, but his hair was silvered at the temples, and a jagged burn scar traced down the right side of his face—a scar that should have been incinerated in a fiery car wreck five years ago.
“Hello, little brother,” Marcus Moretti smiled, raising a sleek silencer-fitted pistol directly at Dominic's chest. “Did you really think a few sticks of dynamite could get rid of me that easily?”
