Chapter 5 - The Council’s Ultimatum
Luca didn't flinch, nor did he immediately remove his hand from the back of my neck. He held my gaze for one more lingering second before slowly dropping his arm and sitting upright. The vulnerability that had filled the room vanished instantly, replaced by the lethal, calculating kingpin of New York.
"Let them come," Luca said coldly, reaching for a clean black button-down shirt from the dresser. "Have the second team meet us at warehouse twelve."
Marcus hesitated, glancing at me. "Boss... Moretti knows about the assistant."
A chill raced down my spine. I stood up, quickly peeling off my latex gloves and tossing them into the wastebasket. "Knows what about me?"
Luca paused halfway through buttoning his shirt, his jaw tightening into rigid granite. "Explain, Marcus."
"The men who hit the front gate tonight weren't just trying to test your defenses, Luca," Marcus said, stepping fully into the room and closing the heavy door behind him. "They pulled Elena’s personal background files from the employment agency Mrs. Ferrara used. Moretti knows she’s here. And he knows who her father was."
The room seemed to spin. I grabbed the back of the leather chair to steady myself. "My father? My father was a high school history teacher who died of a heart attack when I was six years old!"
"Your father's name wasn't David Vance, Elena," Luca said, his voice dropping into a solemn, heavy tone that terrified me more than the gunfire downstairs. He walked over to me, stopping just a foot away, looking down with deep, unreadable regret. "His name was David Moretti. He was the eldest son of the Moretti dynasty before he walked away from the family business twenty-five years ago and changed his identity."
I stared at him, my mouth dry. "That's... that's impossible. My mother never spoke of him having family. We grew up broke! We were evicted four times! If he was from some wealthy dynasty, why did he leave us with nothing?"
"Because he knew what the dynasty does to innocent people," Luca explained gently. "When your father died, Don Moretti assumed David’s bloodline ended with him. But when you entered this house and Mrs. Ferrara ran your biometric security clearance through our internal registry, the match flagged in the state database. Don Moretti doesn't just want to take my territory tonight, Elena. He wants you. You carry the rightful bloodline claim to fifty percent of the Moretti commercial trusts."
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"I don't want their money!" I cried, panic rising in my chest like bile. "I don't even know these people!"
"It doesn't matter what you want," Luca said, his fingers gently brushing the side of my jaw with surprising tenderness. "To them, you are either a valuable pawn to be married off to a rival family... or a loose thread that needs to be cut permanently."
