Chapter 5 - THE WAR ROOM
The mahogany conference room on the second floor of the Moretti estate was where empires were carved up. Maps of shipping lanes, blueprints of Manhattan real estate portfolios, and financial ledgers from Swiss bank accounts usually littered the long table. Tonight, however, the table was bare except for a single bottle of crystal-decantered bourbon and two heavy crystal glasses.
Marcus poured himself a finger of amber liquid, his hand shaking slightly as he slammed it back.
The door pushed open, and Isabella stormed in, slamming it shut behind her so hard the brass handle rattled. Her hair was disheveled, her designer robe twisted, her eyes wild with panic.
"Your father has lost his mind, Marcus!" Isabella hissed, pacing furiously behind him. "He put them in the master wing! The east suite! Right next to our quarters! That maid—that common, dirt-scratching laundry girl—is now eating meals off silver platters while we are treated like squatters in our own home! And that brat... that little bastard is now legal heir to fifty percent of the primary trust!"
"Shut up, Isabella," Marcus muttered, pouring another glass, his voice dangerously low.
"Don't you dare tell me to shut up!" she shrieked, grabbing the crystal decanter and slamming it back onto the wood. "If that child grows up in this house, your father will hand her everything! The shipping ports, the real estate, the syndicate backing—everything we spent the last four years securing while Julian was rotting at the bottom of the Hudson will go to a bastard child and a laundress!"
Marcus turned slowly, his eyes dark and flat. "I told you to shut up because walls have ears in this house, Isabella. Or did you forget who built this empire?"
Isabella swallowed hard, her anger momentarily faltering under the cold weight of her husband's gaze. "What are we going to do, Marcus? We can't just sit here and let an old man and a three-year-old upend everything we've built."
Marcus walked to the tall arched window, looking out over the sprawling twelve acres of private land. The moonlight cut silver streaks across the gravel drive.
"My father is old," Marcus said softly, his voice chillingly calm. "He’s stubborn, and he’s sentimental. But sentimentality is a weakness in our line of work. He thinks because he found a gold button and a cute face, he’s redeemed his favorite son's ghost."
"Then get rid of them," Isabella whispered, stepping close behind him, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial hiss. "Just like we got rid of Julian. A tragic accident. A slip on the stairs. A kitchen fire. It wouldn't be the first time tragedy struck the Moretti family."
Marcus didn't flinch. He didn't confirm her words, but he didn't deny them either. He simply took another sip of bourbon.
"Not yet," Marcus said, his eyes narrowing as he watched a single light turn on in the east wing—the very window of the suite where Rosa and little Lily were now sleeping. "Father has placed them under his direct personal guard. Miller and his loyalists are stationed outside their door twenty-four hours a day. If we move too fast, Father will smell blood, and he will tear us apart before we even reach the knives."
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"Then what?" Isabella demanded. "We just wait for them to take everything?"
"We don't wait," Marcus smiled, a cold, predatory expression that didn't reach his eyes. "We discredit the mother. A woman with a secret past always has skeletons buried in the dirt. And Rosa Santos has spent four years hiding. All we need to do is dig up what she left behind in Little Italy—and show my father that his precious new granddaughter was brought into this house as part of a calculated, long-con extortion plot."
