Chapter 8 - Ghosts of the Past
The penthouse felt different when I walked in an hour later—heavier, charged with a strange, surreal tension.
Sloan was sitting in the living room with Willa cradled in her arms, looking toward the private elevator foyer with an expression of profound unease.
Standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out over the glittering Manhattan skyline, was an elderly woman draped in a heavy mink coat, her silver hair pulled back into a severe, elegant chignon.
When she turned around, the resemblance was undeniable. She had my eyes—the same sharp, calculating green, untouched by age.
“Hello, Vincent,” she said, her voice rich with an accented, aristocratic cadence I hadn't heard since I was a child. “You’ve grown into quite the monster, haven't you?”
I stared at her, the ground seeming to drop away beneath my feet. “Elena Moretti died in Palermo when I was eight years old.”
“Elena Moretti went into hiding to protect you from your father’s enemies, after she realized the man she married was a butcher,” my mother replied calmly, stepping closer. “And she has been watching you build your little empire from the shadows ever since.”
I didn't lower my guard. “Why now? Why crawl out of the grave after twenty-five years?”
Her eyes shifted from me to Sloan, and finally to the tiny bundle resting against Sloan’s chest. A softening crossed her hardened features—just for a second.
“Because my granddaughter was born,” Elena said quietly. “And the same syndicate that tried to destroy me two decades ago is now trying to destroy her.”
Sloan clutched Willa a little tighter, her eyes darting between me and the woman claiming to be my dead mother. “Vincent... is this true?”
“I don't know yet,” I said, my voice cold. “In my world, dead people don't come back to life unless they want something.”
Elena let out a dry, humorless chuckle. “Always the pragmatist. Just like your father. But unlike him, Vincent, you actually care about something other than power. You care about the girl and the child.”
“Get to the point,” I commanded.
“The Russian Bratva you decimated at Pier 54? They weren't operating independently,” Elena said, her expression turning deadly serious. “They answered to a higher authority—a global shadow council known as the Syndicate of Nine, operating out of Geneva. And they won't stop until every single Moretti is in the ground.”
“Then I’ll hunt them down one by one until there’s none left,” I replied flatly.
“You can’t,” Elena said softly. “Because the head of the Syndicate of Nine isn't a Russian mobster, Vincent. It’s your uncle, Marcus.”
The room went dead silent.
Marcus Moretti—my father’s younger brother, who had supposedly retired to Switzerland a decade ago to manage our European investments.
“He orchestrated your divorce, Vincent,” Elena continued, looking straight into my eyes. “He planted the rumors that made you feel trapped, he leaked your travel schedules, and he set up the trust so he could seize the combined Moretti-Rostov empire through your child.”
A cold, blinding rage unlike anything I had ever felt before surged through my veins. Every piece of pain I had caused Sloan, every lonely night she had spent crying while carrying my child, every bullet fired at the docks—it all traced back to one man.
My own blood.
“Mateo,” I whispered, pulling out my satellite phone.
May you like
“Boss?”
“Book a flight to Geneva. We’re going to clear house.”
