Chapter 6 - Blood on Italian Marble
Ten thousand feet above the Georgia coastline, the cabin of the Gulfstream G650 was utterly silent save for the low hum of the twin turbofan engines.
Vincent sat alone in the forward passenger cabin, his eyes fixed on the illuminated tablet in his lap. On the screen was Dante’s comprehensive report: the bank transfers, the Lucchese debt agreements, and the incontrovertible DNA analysis proving that three-year-old Julian shared not a single strand of Moretti DNA.
Every word was an acid burn across his psyche.
*She was never yours,* the documents screamed at him. *Sophia played you for a fool. Emily sold you out for two million dollars. And Claire... Claire took the bullet for all of it.*
A deep, primal sound tore from Vincent’s chest—a guttural roar of pure, unadulterated self-hatred. He swept his arm across the cabin table, sending crystal glasses, a silver ice bucket, and satellite phones crashing against the bulkhead.
He had considered himself a master of men. He had outsmarted federal prosecutors, eliminated rival cartel bosses, and conquered the streets of Chicago through sheer strategic brilliance. Yet in his own home, under his own roof, he had been played like a blind, pathetic amateur by two desperate women.
And Claire had seen right through it.
Claire had possessed too much dignity to scream, too much self-respect to engage in a gutter fight with a parasite like Sophia. She had simply looked at the wreckage of the man she loved, realized he was unworthy of her, and walked away with the only thing of true value: their unborn child.
"Boss," the copilot’s voice came over the cabin intercom, tight and hesitant. "We’ve begun our descent into Savannah. Local air traffic control has cleared our approach. Ground transport is waiting on the tarmac."
Vincent closed his eyes. He forced his breathing to slow, willing his racing pulse down by sheer force of will. When he opened his eyes again, the blind rage was gone, replaced by a cold, terrifying emptiness.
The man who had boarded this plane in Chicago was a mafia don seeking to reclaim his runaway wife.
The man stepping off the plane was a condemned criminal arriving at the gallows, seeking a sentence from the only judge who mattered.
Twenty minutes later, the private jet touched down softly on the private runway at Savannah International. A convoy of three black Cadillac Escalades, arranged by Vincent’s advance security team, was idling on the perimeter apron.
Vincent stepped down the mobile airstair, the humid Southern night air hitting him like a damp wall. He wore a crisp black dress shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, beneath a charcoal tailored suit. He wore no jewelry—not even the Moretti signet ring that had marked his authority for a decade. He felt naked, stripped of the arrogance that had defined his existence.
"Mr. Moretti," his lead security contractor whispered, opening the door of the center SUV. "We have the perimeter of the Skidaway Island estate mapped. Sterling private security is heavily entrenched. Ex-military contractors, thermal sensors on the marshline, automated gate locks. If we breach by force, it will be an international incident within twenty minutes."
"Who said anything about force?" Vincent murmured, sliding into the leather seat.
The contractor blinked. "Sir? You don't want us to secure the perimeter?"
"You stay at the gate," Vincent ordered, staring straight ahead through the tinted windshield. "You do not draw a weapon. You do not speak unless spoken to. If Sterling’s security shoots me dead on the driveway, you turn this convoy around and fly back to Chicago."
The contractor exchanged an alarmed glance with the driver, but the deadly finality in Vincent’s voice brooked no argument.
The convoy pulled out of the private hangar and melted into the coastal highway, speeding through the Spanish-moss-draped avenues toward the dark, guarded sanctuary of Skidaway Island.
Every mile brought a sharp, physical pain to Vincent’s ribs. With every passing second, he was moving closer to the woman he had betrayed, and the three-year-old boy who had never felt his father’s touch.
He pulled out his phone and sent one final text to Dante:
*Execute the liquidations. Sophia and Emily are stripped of the Moretti name. Evict them tonight with nothing but the clothes on their backs. If they ever return to Chicago, let the Luccheses have them.*
May you like
He threw the phone onto the floorboard. The bridges behind him were burned to ash. Ahead lay the fortress of the woman he had destroyed—and he was walking into her firing line entirely unarmed.
***
