Chapter 3 - The Boss’s Shadow
The heavy oak doors of the private suite swung open, and Dante Moretti stepped out.
He had discarded his suit jacket, his white dress shirt sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing lean, corded muscles and a faint, pale scar across his left wrist. He looked tired, the hard angles of his face sharpened by the failing evening light streaming through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows.
He stopped when he saw Sophia still sitting at her desk, surrounded by blinking monitors and half-empty coffee cups.
"You're still here, Miss Romano?" Dante asked, his deep voice carrying an effortless authority that made her spine straighten instinctively.
"I’m finishing the transport logs, Mr. Moretti," she said, standing up quickly, careful not to knock over anything this time. "And... I found something you might want to look at."
Dante narrowed his dark eyes. "Define 'something'."
Sophia didn't hesitate. She had spent the last two hours debating whether to keep her head down and survive, or to risk everything for a man who terrifyingly commanded an empire of gray-suited enforcers. But the memory of her father—forgotten by everyone except her—reminded her what happened when quiet people let the powerful take advantage of them.
She picked up a printed spreadsheet and walked across the glass corridor, laying it flat on Dante’s desk.
"This is an internal expense report for the last quarter," Sophia said, her voice steady despite her racing pulse. "And these three invoices are coded under external consulting for port security. Except the security firm doesn't exist. It’s a shell company registered in Dorchester, controlled by Victor Hale."
Dante looked down at the paper. He didn't touch it. He just stared at the columns of numbers, his face turning into a mask of cold granite.
"How long did it take you to find this?" he asked softly.
"About forty minutes," Sophia replied. "Once I realized the signature on that contract this morning wasn't yours, I started looking at other recent approvals. The signature on these invoices is a match to the forged one."
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Dante raised his gaze slowly. The intensity in his dark eyes was enough to make lesser men fold. "You think Victor Hale is stealing from me?"
"I think someone inside your executive team is," Sophia corrected. "And I think Mark Bell knows about it."
