Chapter 12 - The Ghost of Geneva
Forty-eight hours later, a private Gulfstream jet touched down on a private airstrip nestled in the Swiss Alps, just outside Geneva. The cabin door hissed open, releasing a blast of freezing mountain air. Leo Moretti descended the metal steps alone, clad in a heavy black wool coat, his collar turned up against the biting wind.
Waiting on the tarmac was a sleek, unmarked Mercedes with tinted windows. The rear door clicked open from the inside. Leo slid into the leather-lined interior without a word.
"You travel light for a man walking into a hornets' nest," a smooth, cultured voice murmured from the shadows of the opposite seat.
An elderly man wearing wire-rimmed glasses and an impeccably tailored Italian suit leaned forward. It was Alberto Rossi, the Swiss banker who had managed the Moretti family's off-balance-sheet assets for over forty years.
"If I wanted a crowd, I would have brought my father's enforcers," Leo replied, his voice calm and utterly devoid of fear. "You sent the encrypted ping to Marco's phone, Alberto. You don't summon a Moretti to Geneva unless you have something worth more than my time."
Alberto let out a dry, rattling chuckle. He reached into his leather briefcase and pulled out a heavy, wax-sealed envelope stamped with the crest of the old Sicilian banking guild—a crest that predated the modern syndicate by over a century.
"Your father believes he eradicated every trace of Valentina’s collateral," Alberto said, sliding the envelope across the console. "He was thorough, yes. But men like your father look at enemies with guns, while bankers look at ink on paper."
Leo broke the wax seal with his thumb and pulled out a single sheet of heavy parchment covered in precise, handwritten legal text. His dark eyes scanned the lines rapidly, the muscles in his jaw tightening with every word.
"A second trust," Leo whispered, the temperature in the car dropping instantly.
"Not just a trust," Alberto corrected softly. "An adoption decree, signed two days before you were brought to the mansion as an infant. Valentina knew the risk of relying entirely on Vance. She had a twin arrangement set up with a rival family in Marseille—the Vane tempest. If she fell, the second child—your twin brother, Leo—was supposed to inherit half the syndicate's European holdings."
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Leo looked up, his gaze piercing the banker like a stiletto. "My twin died in the delivery room. The medical records proved it."
"Medical records can be rewritten by the man holding the scalpel," Alberto said evenly. "Dr. Alessi confessed to switching your files, yes. But he only told your father what he wanted to hear to save his own skin. The second child wasn't sold to Milan, Mr. Moretti. He was hidden in plain sight, trained by the very syndicate your father destroyed ten years ago."
