Chapter 5 - The Stepsister’s Venom
While the Moretti estate buzzed with the miraculous confirmation of the six heirs, a storm of pure, malicious hatred was brewing across the city in Beatrice’s luxury penthouse. Elena paced the length of the marble parlor, repeatedly hurling crystal whiskey tumblers against the wall until the room was littered with shattered glass and expensive amber liquor. Her eyes were bloodshot, her manicured nails chewed down to the raw quick.
""It was supposed to be my crown!"" Elena shrieked, her voice shrill with narcissistic fury. ""I spent three years cultivating that old man’s favor! I endured boring dinners, flattered his disgusting capos, and let him think I would be the perfect, dutiful mafia bride! And that little gutter rat, that pathetic orphan my father dragged out of the rain, steals the entire dynasty in one night!""
Her mother, Beatrice, sat calmly at the glass vanity, filing her nails with rhythmic, cold precision. Unlike Elena, Beatrice did not waste energy on screaming; her malice was patient, poisonous, and surgical.
""Screaming won't win back the Moretti billions, darling,"" Beatrice said coolly, blowing the fine dust from her nail file. ""So the street girl has his whelps. That changes the stakes, certainly, but it does not make her invincible. A crown made of children is fragile. If the children cease to exist, the bond between Vincent and that wretched girl snaps instantly.""
Elena froze, her chest heaving, the darkness of her mother’s implication sinking deep into her twisted mind. ""You mean... kill them?""
""Don't be crude,"" Beatrice snapped, narrowing her cold eyes. ""Vincent has the estate locked down tighter than a military base. We couldn't get a sniper within a mile of those brats. But the underworld is full of hungry wolves who hate the Morettis even more than we do. The Tarasov syndicate has been trying to break Vincent’s control over the deep-water harbor for a decade. What do you think they would pay for the exact security route used by Clara Vance?""
Elena’s lips curled into a sickening, triumphant grin. ""Clara still thinks I'm her family. She’s naive, weak, and pathetic. She thinks the best of people.""
""Precisely,"" Beatrice purred, picking up her smartphone. ""We stage a reconciliation. We claim we were terrified for her, that we only acted harshly at the gala to protect her from the dangerous men in that room. We lure her out of that fortress to collect her mother’s last remaining heirlooms from our safety deposit box. And when she steps onto the street, the Russians will be waiting.""
Two days later, a handwritten letter arrived at the Moretti estate, wrapped in lavender silk. It was penned in Elena’s flawless calligraphy, dripping with remorse, sobbing apologies, and desperate pleas for forgiveness. She claimed our late father had left a hidden lockbox containing my biological mother’s wedding ring and journal, items I had spent my entire youth searching for in vain. The letter specified a quiet, neutral tea shop downtown, pleading for an hour of sisterly peace before I officially became the untouchable queen of the Moretti family.
I held the letter in my hands, sitting by the tall bay window of the nursery. For a brief moment, the ghost of the little girl who had once longed for a sister’s love whispered in my ear. But then I looked across the room.
My six children were laughing, healthy, safe, and protected under the watch of armed guards. I was no longer that defenseless, terrified scullery maid scrubbing floors to survive. The blood of the Moretti family ran through my children’s veins, and the ruthless devotion of their father had awakened something fierce, protective, and dangerous inside my own soul.
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I folded the letter neatly, walked into Vincent’s private study, and dropped the paper onto his mahogany desk.
""She wants to trap me, Vincent,"" I said calmly, meeting his dark gray gaze without a single trace of fear. ""Show her what happens when you hunt a mother.""
