Chapter 5 - The Fortress in the North
Alexander did not sleep.
For three days and three nights, he remained on the sixty-fifth floor of Moretti Tower, sustained only by black espresso and the burning, toxic fuel of sheer desperation.
He had fired Sophia Reynolds via a two-sentence letter drafted by his legal counsel, having her evicted from the luxury Gold Coast penthouse he had leased for her within two hours of Gabriel’s call. When Sophia had attempted to storm into the corporate lobby, screaming about their "future" and threatening to sell her story to Page Six, Alexander hadn't even looked at her through the security monitors. He had ordered Kane to escort her to the curb, seize the company-leased sports car, and have her name blacklisted from every luxury property in Chicago.
Sophia was nothing. She had always been nothing—a shallow, glittering distraction that had cost him his entire universe.
At dawn on Friday, Marcus Kane entered the private office without knocking.
His coat was soaked with rain, but his face carried the grim satisfaction of a hunter who had finally found the trail.
"We found the transit vector, sir," Kane said, dropping a thick dossier onto the blotter.
Alexander lunged for it. "Where?"
"Vance didn't take her to New York. That was a feint designed to keep our legal teams tied up in Manhattan appellate courts," Kane explained, pointing to a series of satellite coordinates. "He flew her directly from Kenosha to a private airstrip outside Bar Harbor, Maine. She’s at Vance’s private coastal compound—Blackwood Point."
Alexander examined the satellite photographs.
Blackwood Point was an architectural fortress situated on a rocky promontory overlooking the gray, churning Atlantic Ocean. Surrounded on three sides by sheer, sixty-foot granite cliffs and freezing ocean currents, the estate was accessible by land only via a single, heavily guarded two-lane private causeway secured by biometric iron gates and private security patrols.
"Can we breach it?" Alexander asked, his voice dead, flat, and reckless.
Kane looked at him like he had lost his sanity. "Breach it? Mr. Moretti, that property is guarded by an elite private security firm staffed by former Marine Recon operators. Gabriel Vance holds private defense clearance. If we attempt an armed entry, his security will have legal standing to shoot on sight under Maine domestic defense statutes. You would be dead or in federal custody before your foot touched the gravel."
"I am not sending an armed team, Kane," Alexander said, standing up, reaching for his coat. "I am going alone."
"Sir, that is professional and legal suicide," Kane warned. "If you set foot on that property, Vance’s attorneys will file an emergency stalking and harassment injunction that will permanently bar you from within five hundred yards of your son for the rest of his natural life."
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"My son is already gone, Kane!" Alexander yelled, his voice echoing off the glass walls. "My life is already over! If I stay in this office, I am a ghost! I don't care about Vance's guards. I don't care about his injunctions. I am going to see my wife."
Three hours later, Alexander Moretti’s private Gulfstream G650 took off from O'Hare, banking east into the stormy autumn clouds toward the rocky coast of Maine.
