Chapter 8 - THE BLOOD RIGHT
I did not lower my hand from my weapon.
The name echoed in my skull like a detonated charge.
Teresa Valin.
The matriarch of the North Side council.
The woman who had vanished from high-society galas twenty years ago, presumed dead in an offshore boating accident.
"My mother told me her family was dead," I said, my voice cutting through the damp air.
"She told you what was necessary to keep you alive, Sofia," Teresa said softly.
She stopped five feet from me, leaning her weight on the silver cane.
Her eyes swept over my torn blouse, the soot on my cheek, the gun in my pocket.
A slow, proud smile curved her wrinkled lips.
"Look at you."
"Covered in Moretti blood."
"Wearing their bruises."
"And holding their iron like you were born to it."
"I am not a Moretti," I snapped.
"I took off the ring."
"I know," Teresa said.
"Enzo called me forty minutes ago from the ambulance."
My breath hitched.
"Enzo answers to you?"
"Enzo was your grandfather’s godson, child," Teresa revealed, turning back toward the mahogany desk.
"He has been embedded in Alessandro’s private security detail since the day you were married."
"He was there to make sure Alessandro never crossed the final line."
"He crossed it tonight!" I yelled, the rage boiling over my chest.
"He brought that woman into my house!"
"He slept in the room where my mother died!"
"And he knew his uncle poisoned her!"
Teresa picked up a thick manila folder from the desk.
She held it out toward me.
The cardboard was stamped with the crimson wax seal of the Valin dynasty: a winged lion over an iron anchor.
"Open it, Sofia."
My trembling fingers took the folder.
I broke the wax seal.
Inside lay thirty pages of original property deeds, municipal land grants dating back to 1924, and an unsealed legal trust.
At the bottom of the final page was my mother's signature:
Elena Valenti-Brooks.
And beside it was a secondary signature that made my blood run cold.
Alessandro Moretti.
Dated six months ago.
"What is this?" I breathed, my eyes scanning the legal clauses.
"Read Section Nine," Teresa commanded gently.
I turned the page.
“In the event of the dissolution of the marriage between Alessandro Moretti and Sofia Moretti, or upon the death of the husband, all commercial terminal rights, warehouse facilities, and maritime berths of the Moretti Logistics Corporation shall transfer irrevocably and unconditionally to Sofia Moretti.”
I stopped breathing.
The room seemed to shrink.
"He signed over his entire empire to me?"
"Six months ago," Teresa said.
"When Marco Russo first approached him with the forged leases."
"Alessandro knew Marco was planning a coup, Sofia."
"He knew the Russo family was going to use your mother’s land to destroy him."
"Then why Valentina?!" I cried, tears of pure, agonizing confusion spilling down my face.
"Why bring her into our home?!"
"Why sleep with her in that bedroom?!"
Teresa looked at me with deep, sorrowful eyes.
"Valentina had the encryption keys to Marco’s offshore accounts in her personal jewelry box," Teresa said.
"Alessandro needed those keys to prove Marco was laundering cartel money before the Commission voted on the territory."
"He brought her to the house to search her belongings while she thought she had him trapped."
"And the bedroom?" my voice cracked.
"The west bedroom was the only room in that mansion that was not wired with Russian audio bugs, Sofia," Teresa explained.
"Marco had listening devices in the master suite, the library, and the dining room."
"Alessandro took her to that room because it was the only place in that fortress where he could question her without Marco hearing every word."
I staggered backward against the wooden door frame.
My knees hit the floor.
The folder slipped from my hands, papers scattering across the dust.
The lipstick on his collar.
The high heels under the sofa.
The woman adjusting his tie.
It wasn't an affair.
It was an interrogation.
A desperate, solitary war fought in the dark by a man who was trying to save my inheritance without letting me see the blood on his hands.
And I had walked out on him.
I had shot his ally.
I had left him bleeding on the floorboards of our burning home.
"He lied to me, Teresa," I wept, burying my face in my hands.
"He let me believe he was a traitor."
"Because he is an arrogant, stubborn fool," Teresa said, stepping forward and resting her hand on my head.
"He wanted to be your protector."
"He wanted to hand you your mother's empire on a silver platter, clean and free of blood."
"He forgot that you are a Valin."
Teresa lifted my chin with her gloved fingers.
"A Valin doesn't need a protector, Sofia."
"A Valin needs an army."
Outside the boarded windows, the low rumble of heavy diesel engines shook the brick walls.
Tires crunched on the gravel outside.
Enzo’s voice crackled through the door:
"Donna Moretti!"
"Alessandro's pulse is dropping!"
May you like
"The trauma surgeons at Northwestern are refusing to operate without your authorization!"
"The Commission has surrounded the hospital!"
