Chapter 5 - VICTOR SMILED AT MY BABY LIKE HE ALREADY OWNED HIM
Victor Moretti entered the drawing room at three nineteen in the afternoon.
He carried no weapon.
He did not need one.
Men like Victor had spent entire lives making other people carry them.
He wore a navy overcoat dusted with snow and held a wooden box tied with blue ribbon.
Baby gift.
Perfect.
Adrian had insisted the meeting happen downstairs.
Open room.
Six cameras.
Matteo and four men nearby.
I remained upstairs at first.
That was the plan.
Then Victor said:
“I hear Claire had a frightening night.”
My blood went cold.
He knew I was still there.
Perhaps obvious.
Perhaps not.
Then:
“I brought something for the child.”
Adrian’s voice came through the monitor.
“You can leave it.”
Victor laughed.
“Still angry from yesterday?”
Yesterday.
He had dined with Adrian three days earlier.
Not yesterday.
Why say it?
Testing.
Adrian replied:
“Busy.”
Victor walked around the room slowly.
His eyes moved toward the west staircase.
“Where is Eleanor?”
“Resting.”
“Claire?”
“Resting.”
Victor smiled.
“Good.”
I looked at Eleanor.
She stood beside me in the security room.
“What does he know?”
“I don’t know.”
“That answer is getting old.”
“I know.”
Downstairs, Victor sat across from Adrian.
“You should move the carrier.”
he said.
Carrier.
Not Claire.
Not mother.
My jaw tightened.
“Why?”
Adrian asked.
“Someone shot at her.”
“Exactly.”
“Then why move her?”
“Because the estate has been compromised.”
Reasonable.
Too reasonable.
Victor continued.
“Put her in one of the Connecticut houses.”
“Keep the child here.”
There.
Adrian’s expression did not change.
“Why separate them?”
“The contract.”
Victor said.
“She was leaving anyway.”
Adrian leaned back.
“Were you reading my family contracts?”
Victor laughed.
“I advised your father.”
“You have no secrets from me.”
That sentence.
No secrets.
Eleanor whispered:
“He always says that.”
I looked at her.
“Did my father hear it too?”
She nodded.
Downstairs, Adrian asked:
“Why did Thomas Vieri meet Calvin Roarke?”
Silence.
Victor’s smile faded one degree.
“Who?”
“Your secretary.”
“I know Thomas.”
“I don’t know Roarke.”
Adrian slid a photograph across the table.
Victor looked.
Then sighed.
“Thomas meets hundreds of people.”
“At a gas station at midnight?”
“Perhaps.”
“Two days before someone shoots at my nursery?”
Victor’s eyes sharpened.
“Your nursery?”
Not Claire’s.
Not Gabriel’s.
Possession.
Adrian said:
“You sound surprised.”
“I am offended.”
“That you suspect me.”
“I did not say you.”
“You said Thomas.”
“Thomas has served me eighteen years.”
“Then you should be very interested in why he met a contract shooter.”
Victor stared.
Then:
“I am.”
Good answer.
Too good.
He stood.
“I will handle him.”
“No.”
Adrian’s voice hardened.
“You won’t.”
Victor turned.
“What?”
“Matteo will.”
Silence.
For twenty years, Victor had been the elder.
The adviser.
The man who cleaned problems.
Adrian had just removed the broom from his hand.
Victor smiled slowly.
“You are changing.”
“Yes.”
“Because of her?”
I felt it through the monitor.
Adrian answered:
“Because someone fired bullets at my son.”
Victor nodded.
Then:
“Blood simplifies priorities.”
I hated the sentence.
The meeting ended.
Victor left the gift.
A silver christening cup engraved:
GABRIEL ADRIAN MORETTI
My name nowhere.
Not surprising.
Still.
After Victor’s SUV left the property, Matteo’s team followed Thomas Vieri.
He had disappeared.
Apartment empty.
Phone abandoned.
Bank accounts nearly cleared.
That did not prove Victor ordered anything.
It proved Thomas expected trouble.
Adrian contacted a federal prosecutor.
That surprised everyone.
Including me.
“Federal?”
I asked.
“Yes.”
“You trust them?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because Victor owns too many local relationships.”
He looked at me.
“And because your father wanted evidence turned over twenty-one years ago.”
That mattered.
“Finishing his work?”
“No.”
“Starting ours.”
Ours.
I heard it.
Did not comment.
The prosecutor was named Samuel Hart.
Fifty-eight.
Former organized-crime unit.
He arrived under the cover of a private medical consultation.
When he saw Eleanor, he laughed bitterly.
“You.”
She nodded.
“You look old.”
“You look dishonest.”
“Still.”
Apparently history existed there too.
Hart reviewed the Bellandi letter.
Trust records.
Shooter evidence.
Lake Crest shell-company connection.
Then he looked at Adrian.
“You understand if I start pulling threads, I do not stop at Victor.”
Adrian nodded.
“Meaning?”
I asked.
Hart looked at me.
“The Moretti organization has legitimate businesses.”
“It also has a long history of criminal conduct.”
I knew.
Everyone knew.
“Investigating Victor may expose Adrian.”
“Yes.”
I looked at Adrian.
He said nothing.
Hart continued.
“Extortion.”
“Unlicensed gambling.”
“Protection arrangements.”
“Possible bribery.”
“Maybe worse.”
Adrian’s face remained calm.
I asked:
“You still want him involved?”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
“Why?”
“Because Gabriel lives here.”
His son.
Not father.
Maybe both.
He continued.
“Because if I keep using illegal power to solve illegal problems, my child inherits exactly what Victor expects him to.”
The line from my father’s letter.
Children inherit choices.
Adrian had understood.
Hart watched him carefully.
“You prepared to cooperate?”
“On Victor.”
“That is not how cooperation works.”
Adrian smiled without humor.
“Then negotiate.”
Hart laughed.
“There he is.”
For the next two hours, attorneys argued.
No immunity.
No magical clean slate.
Adrian would provide records involving Victor and Lake Crest.
Government would evaluate broader cooperation separately.
No raids based only on family accusations.
Facts.
Again.
By midnight, Thomas Vieri’s abandoned phone produced a location ping near Baltimore.
Matteo wanted to send men.
Adrian refused.
“Give it to Hart.”
Matteo looked uncomfortable.
“Sir.”
“What?”
“Thomas knows things.”
“So does the government.”
“You trust them more than us?”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“No.”
“I trust that whatever happens to Thomas should not become a body we have to hide.”
Matteo absorbed that.
Then nodded.
Change.
Painfully visible.
At one in the morning, Gabriel woke screaming.
I carried him into the hallway.
Adrian was still in his study.
He heard.
Rolled out.
“Gas?”
“Probably.”
“Can I?”
I handed him the baby.
Adrian settled Gabriel carefully against his chest.
The child quieted.
Traitor.
I smiled despite myself.
Then Adrian looked at me.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You smiled.”
“Your son likes crime bosses.”
“Excellent judgment.”
I leaned against the wall.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then:
“What happens if I decide I don’t want the shares?”
Adrian answered immediately.
“Then you don’t want them.”
“You wouldn’t fight?”
“They’re yours.”
“Even if losing my vote threatens your control?”
“Yes.”
I studied him.
“Why should I believe you?”
He looked at Gabriel.
“You shouldn’t yet.”
That answer hurt in the right way.
Truth without demand.
Then a security alarm sounded from Adrian’s phone.
Not gunfire.
Medical alert.
Eleanor’s room.
We rushed there.
She was on the floor.
Conscious.
Barely.
A tea cup broken beside her.
Dr. Sayeed arrived within minutes.
Her blood pressure was dangerously low.
Heart rhythm unstable.
Possible poisoning.
Again.
Someone had gotten inside the locked estate.
Not to kill me this time.
To silence the woman who knew what happened twenty-one years ago.
And in Eleanor’s hand, clenched so tightly her knuckles were white, was a single piece of paper.
She had torn it from somewhere before collapsing.
May you like
Three words were written across it.
GABRIEL IS ALIVE.
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