Chapter 11 - The Newport Exile
Two months bled into the gray coastline of Rhode Island.
The Newport estate was a sprawling, stone fortress of old-money isolation, surrounded by wind-swept cliffs and crashing Atlantic waves. It was quiet here—so quiet that the silence felt like a physical weight pressing down on my chest every time I sat in the cavernous study.
My private jet touched down at the local airstrip twice a week. Each time, I brought toys, clothes, and books for Willa, but the currency I really wanted to trade in—forgiveness and a second chance—wasn't something money could buy.
Sloan let me see our daughter. She never locked the doors, never turned me away, and never raised her voice. That cold, polite distance was infinitely more agonizing than any screaming match we could have had.
On a damp Tuesday afternoon, I found Sloan sitting on the rear veranda, wrapped in a heavy wool shawl, watching the gray fog roll over the lawn while Willa slept soundly in her stroller.
I stepped onto the wooden planks, my footsteps slow and deliberate. I handed her a hot ceramic mug of tea, the way she liked it—heavy on the honey, light on the milk.
She took it without looking up. “You didn't have to fly in today, Vincent. The weather advisory said a nor'easter is coming.”
“I don't care about the weather,” I said, pulling up a chair and sitting across from her. “I care about being here.”
Sloan finally turned her green eyes toward me, a quiet storm swirling in their depths. “And how long are you going to keep playing the penitent father before the city pulls you back? Your underbosses in New York are running a multi-billion dollar empire, Vincent. Empires don't run themselves from a cliffside in Rhode Island.”
“I left Mateo in charge of day-to-day operations,” I replied flatly. “And I’ve spent the last two months liquidating our heavy overseas assets. I’m stepping back, Sloan.”
Her breath caught. She stared at me, searching my face for a lie. “Stepping back? The Vincent Moretti doesn't just step back from the underworld. Men like you die in it.”
“Not anymore,” I said, leaning forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “I spent my entire life building a cage out of money, power, and blood, thinking it would keep me safe. All it did was lock out the only person I ever truly wanted to share it with.”
Before Sloan could answer, the heavy oak doors behind us burst open.
Mateo stood in the doorway, soaked to the bone from the rising storm, his face carved out of pure, unadulterated panic.
“Boss,” Mateo gasped, ignoring Sloan’s presence entirely. “We have a breach. Not from the Russians. Not from the Syndicate. From inside.”
My blood ran cold. “Speak.”
“Your mother,” Mateo said, his voice trembling. “Elena didn't destroy all of Marcus’s contingency protocols before she left Geneva. There’s a sleeper cell. And they just grabbed the federal indictment files on your old corporate fronts. They’re coming for your assets—and they’re using Willa’s birth certificate as leverage to trigger a federal custody seizure.”
May you like
I stood up so fast my chair crashed backward onto the stone floor.
The war wasn't over. It had just changed uniform.
