Chapter 7 - Smoke and Severed Ties
Grace grabbed Roman by the collar of his ruined suit jacket, using every ounce of strength she possessed to drag him across the threshold.
She kicked the heavy titanium door shut with her heel and spun the emergency locking wheel until the secondary deadbolts engaged with a sharp hydraulic thud.
Roman lay sprawled on the composite floor, his chest heaving as shallow, agonizing breaths rattled in his throat.
Blood pooled beneath his ribs, staining the clean floor of the shelter a dark, glistening scarlet.
Grace dropped to her knees beside him, immediately tearing away the remnants of his silk tie and pressing it firmly against the puncture wound in his side.
Roman groaned in agony, his teeth gritted so hard that blood leaked from the corner of his split lip.
His dark eyes, usually cold and calculating, were glazed with shock and mounting blood loss.
“You should... you should have activated the transponder,” he whispered, his voice a harsh, scraping rasp.
“Shut up and let me stop the bleeding,” Grace snapped, pulling a field trauma kit from the emergency cabinet beneath the workstation.
She ripped open a package of sterile gauze and packed it deep into the wound, ignoring his muffled roar of pain.
“The cellar... is completely compromised,” Roman gasped, his fingers gripping Grace’s wrist with surprising strength.
“Salvatore brought in private contractors from across the border.”
“They blew the eastern foundation... Dr. Aris is dead.”
“I know,” Grace said, her hands moving with clinical urgency as she taped a pressure dressing over his ribs.
“We heard the breach through the auxiliary monitors.”
Oliver emerged quietly from behind the leather sofa, holding his one-eared teddy bear tightly against his chest.
The boy walked toward them, stopping just inches from where his uncle lay bleeding on the floor.
“Uncle Roman, did you hurt the monsters?” the child asked softly.
Roman looked at his nephew, the lethal hardness in his eyes melting into an expression of profound, weary sadness.
“The monsters are having a bad night, little man.”
Roman’s gaze drifted from the boy toward the glowing terminal screen behind Grace.
His pupils dilated as he saw the illuminated documents displayed on the high-resolution monitors.
The Vermont marriage certificate between Vittorio Moretti and Rebecca Vance was centered on the primary display.
Beside it lay the birth registry bearing the name Grace Moretti.
Roman’s hand released Grace’s wrist, his blood-stained fingers trembling as he reached toward the screen.
“What... what is that?”
Grace sat back on her heels, wiping sweat and a streak of Roman’s blood from her forehead.
“Oliver gave me the real secret before the breach.”
“Daniel didn't hide the files in the cellar wall, Roman.”
“He knew Dr. Aris was leaking information to Salvatore.”
She pointed toward the gutted teddy bear resting on the floor beside the cot.
“Daniel sewed the master drive into Oliver’s bear before he died.”
“And inside that drive was a letter from my mother.”
Roman stared at the screen, the reality of the words crashing through his defenses like an artillery shell.
“Vittorio... was your father?”
“Yes,” Grace replied, her voice steady and resolute.
“Which means you and Daniel are not just strangers who sheltered my mother.”
“You are my half-brothers.”
Roman let his head fall back against the cold floor, a dry, bitter laugh rattling in his injured chest.
“All those years... my father treated Daniel like an outcast because Daniel refused to participate in the cartel executions.”
“Our father called him weak, called him a traitor to the family honor.”
“Daniel wasn't weak at all.”
“He was carrying the weight of an entire innocent family on his shoulders while I played the obedient soldier.”
Roman forced himself into a sitting position, groaning through clenched teeth as the pressure dressing strained against his wound.
He looked at Grace, truly looking at her for the first time since she had walked into his house three months ago.
He saw his father’s sharp jawline in her face, but the fierce, unwavering light in her hazel eyes belonged entirely to the woman in the garden footage.
“Salvatore doesn't just want to control the northern ports, Grace,” Roman whispered, his eyes narrowing with sudden, lethal clarity.
“If you are Vittorio’s legitimate first-born from an earlier civil marriage, the syndicate charter has a fatal flaw.”
“Under our grandfather’s original trust, any legitimate child born of a lawful marriage possesses an irrevocable fifty-one percent voting share of the parent company.”
“My mother’s marriage to Vittorio was a Catholic ceremony arranged by the commission, but it was never registered civilly in the United States to avoid federal tax exposure.”
Grace stared at him, the legal machinery of the mafia’s wealth clicking into place with horrifying precision.
“You mean... legally...”
“Legally, you own the entire Moretti empire,” Roman said, his voice dropping into a reverent whisper.
“Not me.”
“Not Salvatore.”
“You.”
“Daniel didn't bring you here to make you a target, Grace.”
“He brought you here so that when Salvatore made his move, you would have the legal and cryptographic keys to strip him of every dime he ever stole.”
Before Grace could respond, the tactical radio strapped to Roman’s combat harness crackled to life with a burst of static.
A smooth, mocking voice filtered through the small speaker, carrying the heavy, gravelly cadence of an older man.
“Roman, my boy, I assume you are listening to this channel from whichever hole you are currently bleeding in.”
Roman reached down and clicked the transponder to receive, keeping the microphone close to his lips.
“Salvatore.”
“Ah, good, you are still breathing,” the old man chuckled through the speaker, the sound dripping with venomous satisfaction.
“I have just concluded an emergency meeting with the five regional capos at the waterfront terminal.”
“I have informed them that rogue federal agents launched a catastrophic raid on the estate, resulting in your tragic demise.”
“By sunrise, the council will ratify my appointment as supreme trustee of the Moretti holdings.”
“And as for your little maid and Daniel’s bastard child... my cleaning crew will ensure their remains are pulverized along with the estate’s foundations.”
“Enjoy your final hours in the dark, nephew.”
The line went dead with a sharp click of radio silence.
Roman looked at Grace, the pain in his body completely overridden by a cold, calculating fury.
May you like
“We have until sunrise before the concrete trucks arrive to bury this wing.”
“We need to move now.”
