Chapter 13 - The Ghost of Fifth Avenue
Miles away from the sterile corporate towers of Manhattan, inside a dimly lit, high-end brownstone on the Upper East Side, Lucinda Sterling paced across imported Persian rugs like a caged panther. Gone was the pristine, impeccably groomed socialite who once commanded rooms with a flick of her diamond-encrusted wrist. Her hair was unwashed, her designer clothes rumpled, and her eyes bloodshot from days of paranoid isolation.
Her cell phone buzzed violently on the marble kitchen island. She lunged for it, her fingers swiping frantically across the screen.
"Talk to me! Did you bribe the judge? Did you get the offshore transfer cleared?" she hissed into the receiver.
"It’s over, Lucinda," came the strained, panicked voice of her former personal assistant, now hiding in a motel in New Jersey. "The banks have frozen everything. Federal agents raided my apartment an hour ago. Moretti’s legal team is untouchable. If you stay in the city, you’re going to federal prison for twenty years."
Lucinda let out a shrill, hysterical laugh that cut through the silence of the empty townhouse. "Prison? Me? I am a Sterling! My family built half of this city! Salvatore Moretti is just a brutal street-fighter who got lucky with algorithms and real estate! He thinks he can destroy me over a brat with a bruised leg?"
"Lucinda, listen to me," the voice pleaded urgently. "He isn't just fighting you legally. Rumor on Wall Street is that he’s acquiring your family’s foundational trust assets piece by piece. He’s erasing your legacy. You don't exist anymore."
The line went dead with a sharp click.
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Lucinda stared at the blank screen of her phone, her chest heaving as a cold, paralyzing terror gripped her heart. For the first time in her life, she realized the magnitude of her fatal miscalculation. She hadn't just angered a wealthy businessman; she had declared war on a titan who viewed the world through the lens of absolute dominance. And Salvatore Moretti never left loose ends.
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