Chapter 6 - The Bloodline Revelation
Vincent’s boot pressed harder into Dominic's chest, silencing him with a sharp grunt of agony. The sound of tactical sirens grew deafening outside the penthouse building, tires screeching in the cobblestone courtyard below.
""Elena, lock the primary blast doors,"" Vincent commanded into his lapel radio. ""Delay the federal agents at the lobby gates. Marco, get the medical kit ready in the subterranean tunnel.""
Vincent stepped off Dominic, grabbed him roughly by the collar of his blood-drenched vest, and dragged him across the shattered library like a sack of trash, dumping him into a reinforced steel holding cell hidden behind a faux bookshelf. He slammed the heavy bolt shut and turned the digital lock. Dominic cursed and pounded on the bulletproof glass, but the sound was completely muffled.
Vincent walked toward me, his movements deliberate. He stopped two feet away, looking down at the emerald ivy pendant resting against my collarbone.
""Your mother was Francesca Moretti,"" Vincent said, each word landing like an anvil in the quiet room. ""She was my father's younger sister. Twenty-seven years ago, my father attempted to marry her off to the head of the Chicago syndicate to seal a bloody alliance. Francesca refused. She fell in love with an ordinary man—an archivist named Mercer—and fled the city under the cover of night with the help of my father's most trusted confidant.""
My breath caught in my throat. My mother had died in a hit-and-run when I was six years old. I had grown up in foster homes, believing I had no family left on earth.
""David didn't pick you by accident,"" Vincent continued, his silver eyes flashing with dark fury. ""Dominic found out your true identity six months ago through family genealogical records. Under our grandfather's original trust, thirty percent of the Moretti family's legitimate real estate holdings and Swiss wealth were legally willed to Francesca and her direct heirs. You aren't an innocent bystander who got caught in David's web, Rowan. You are the legal co-owner of the Moretti empire.""
The world tilted beneath my feet. ""Dominic didn't just want thirty thousand dollars... he wanted my death so my inheritance would default to him as the surviving nephew.""
""Yes,"" Vincent said. ""And David was planted in your life to keep you monitored, to gather your legal signatures, and to make your murder look like a tragic domestic dispute over money.""
Suddenly, the heavy blast doors at the end of the private elevator hall shuddered under the impact of a hydraulic battering ram. Megaphones barked commands through the concrete: “FBI! Open the doors immediately!”
Vincent reached out and gently gripped my hand. ""We have three minutes before they breach the reinforced perimeter. I have an escape tunnel that leads directly to the subway line beneath Lexington Avenue. But if we leave together, the authorities will brand you as my accomplice.""
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I looked at the blood on his hands, then at the silver pendant around my neck, and finally into the eyes of the man who had sheltered me when everyone else in my life had tried to destroy me.
""I spent my entire life running from shadows and being a victim to men who wanted to use me,"" I said, my voice hardening with a resolve I didn't know I possessed. ""I'm not running anymore. Show me the tunnel.""
