Chapter 9 - Ashes and Iron
Vincent stood frozen on the steps for ten minutes, the icy Maine rain beginning to fall, soaking through his thousand-dollar coat, plastering his dark hair to his forehead.
He didn't move. He couldn't.
Dominic stepped out of the SUV, walking slowly through the rain until he stood beside the boss. He didn't speak. He simply placed a heavy hand on Vincent’s shoulder.
"She’s gone, Dominic," Vincent whispered, his voice hollow, empty of rage, empty of authority, empty of everything that had made him who he was. "She’s really gone."
"Let's go home, Vincent," Dominic said gently.
The flight back to Chicago was silent. Vincent sat by the window of the Gulfstream, watching the storm clouds roll beneath the wings like an endless ocean of ash.
He looked down at his bandaged hand. For years, he had believed that power was measured in territory, in the number of politicians who answered his calls, in the millions flowing through his bank accounts. He had built a fortress of steel and blood to prove that no one could ever take anything from him.
And in doing so, he had driven away the only person who had ever loved him for free.
When the jet landed at O'Hare, Vincent didn't go to Moretti Tower. He didn't go to his club in the Gold Coast. He instructed Dominic to drive him directly to the Lake Forest mansion.
He walked into the enormous house. It smelled of stale lilies and polish. The high ceilings bounced the sound of his footsteps back to him, hollow and mocking.
He climbed the stairs to the master bedroom.
The room was exactly as she had left it three weeks ago. On his mahogany desk, the legal documents still lay where Dominic had left them, untouched. Beside them rested her wedding ring—six carats of flawless platinum and diamond, catching the pale afternoon light from the window.
Vincent walked over to the desk. He picked up the ring. It felt impossibly cold against his palm.
He remembered the day he bought it. He had worked twenty-hour days for six months, taking dangerous contracts that could have ended with him at the bottom of the Calumet River, just to make sure that when he asked Claire Vance to be his wife, she would have the most magnificent ring any girl from her neighborhood had ever seen.
She had cried when he proposed. Not because of the diamond, but because he had whispered that as long as she was by his side, he would never be afraid of the dark again.
He closed his fist around the ring, the sharp platinum edges digging deep into his palm until blood welled between his fingers, staining his cuff.
He pulled the manila folder toward him.
He flipped past the pages of cold legal declarations, past the waiver of her financial rights, all the way to the final page where her signature sat: *Claire Vance.*
Below her name was a blank line: *Respondent: Vincent Moretti.*
His corporate lawyers had prepared a ninety-page countersuit that would have tied her up in litigation for the next decade. They had found three obscure loopholes in the Cook County jurisdiction rules that could have forced her to appear in court every month, dragging her back to Chicago, making her face him again and again until she broke.
Vincent looked at the pen resting on the blotter.
*“Don't force me to destroy what’s left of your life just to protect mine,”* her voice echoed in his ears.
He realized then that if he fought her, if he used his power, his money, and his lawyers to drag her back into his orbit, he wouldn't be loving her. He would be hunting her.
He picked up the heavy Montblanc pen.
His hand shook—the same hand that had fired weapons without hesitation, the hand that had signed contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars without blinking.
With one slow, agonizing motion, Vincent Moretti signed his name on the line.
He didn't contest a single clause. He didn't demand an accounting of her trust. He accepted every term she had set.
He closed the folder, slid it across the desk toward Dominic, who stood silently by the door, and spoke without looking up.
"Deliver this to Evelyn Park’s office by hand," Vincent said, his voice as dead as winter soil. "Tell her the waiver of marital assets is rejected."
Dominic blinked. "Boss?"
"Tell Park that fifty million dollars in tax-free municipal bonds and the full deed to the Maine property are being transferred to Claire’s name immediately," Vincent continued, staring at the blood dripping from his fist onto the leather blotter. "If Claire refuses the transfer, tell Park to hold it in a blind trust for her medical care, her living expenses, her future. If she never touches a penny of it, that’s her choice. But it belongs to her."
"Yes, sir," Dominic replied softly, taking the folder.
"And Dominic?"
"Yes, Vincent?"
May you like
"Remove our watchers from Maine. Pull the surveillance. Cancel the trackers." Vincent closed his eyes, leaning back into his leather chair, looking older than his forty years. "If any man under my command ever approaches her, or if any rival family so much as speaks her name in a threat... kill them. But other than that... let her live in the sun."
***
