Chapter 5 - The Wolf in the Parlor
By Friday evening, the tension inside the main Moretti mansion was thick enough to cut with a butcher’s knife.
In the grand dining room—a cavernous space dominated by a twenty-seat mahogany table and crystal chandeliers that had once hung in a European palace—Lucas sat at the head of the table. To his right sat Julian Vance, cutting into a rare filet mignon with slow, deliberate precision.
The silence between them had stretched for twenty minutes.
“You’ve been uncharacteristically quiet today, Lucas,” Julian noted, slipping a piece of beef into his mouth and chewing slowly. “The zoning committee approved the New Jersey warehouse acquisition this afternoon. That’s a hundred-million-dollar win for the syndicate. Yet you look like a man preparing for a funeral.”
Lucas set his silver fork down onto his porcelain plate. The sound was crisp, clean, and terrifyingly final.
“I was thinking about Isabella,” Lucas said, his voice terrifyingly calm.
Julian didn't flinch. He didn't drop his knife. He simply took a sip of his Bordeaux, wiped his mouth with a linen napkin, and looked across the table with mild, sympathetic curiosity.
“It’s the anniversary coming up, I know,” Julian said smoothly. “Grief plays strange tricks on the mind, Lucas. It makes us look for ghosts where there are only memories. You need to let her go. And you need to let go of the idea that someone in this house betrayed you.”
Lucas stared at Julian’s eyes—those cold, slate-colored eyes that had looked him in the face for twenty years while pretending to be a brother.
“Who said anything about betrayal, Julian?” Lucas asked softly. “I only mentioned my wife.”
Julian’s smile didn't reach his eyes, but it remained firmly in place. “Because whenever you get that particular look in your eye, Lucas, it means your imagination is running wild. Remember when you thought the Brooklyn docks were compromised by the Moretti cousins? You spent a week tearing apart your own supply chain before realizing it was just bad weather.”
“This isn't bad weather,” Lucas said, leaning forward, resting his forearms on the mahogany table. “This is a storm I built with my own hands.”
Before Julian could reply, the heavy double doors of the dining room swung open.
Mrs. Geller hurried in, looking flustered, holding a silver tray with a sealed envelope.
“Mr. Moretti, apologies for the interruption,” Geller said, bowing slightly. “A courier just dropped this off at the front gate marked Immediate / Personal.”
Lucas didn't break eye contact with Julian as he reached out, took the heavy paper envelope, and tore the top open.
Inside was a single sheet of paper and a thumb-sized electronic device—a military-grade radio frequency transmitter, identical to the one Marcus had recovered from the digital simulation of Isabella’s car.
Attached to the note was a printed shipping receipt showing that the device had been purchased two years ago under a shell corporation registered in the Cayman Islands—a corporation whose ultimate beneficiary was listed under a single, familiar name: J. Vance Holdings.
Lucas slowly lowered the paper.
The air in the grand dining room turned to ice.
Julian looked at the envelope in Lucas’s hand. For the first time all evening, the color drained slightly from the older man’s cheeks. The mask slipped, revealing the ruthless, desperate predator hiding underneath.
“Where did you get that?” Julian asked, his voice losing its smooth, patrician cadence.
Lucas stood up slowly, towering over the table.
“You helped me bury my wife, Julian,” Lucas whispered, his voice trembling with a rage so profound it shook the crystal glasses on the table. “You held my shoulder at the graveside. You told me you’d find the bastards who did it.”
Julian pushed his chair back, standing up with sudden, dangerous agility. He didn't deny it. Instead, a cold, bitter sneer twisted his features.
“And what was I supposed to do, Lucas?” Julian snapped back, his voice echoing off the high stone walls. “You were falling apart! You wanted to walk away from the syndicate, sell the assets, and move to some quiet house in Vermont to play piano with a woman who didn't understand the first thing about blood and power! You were going to destroy everything my grandfather and I built!”
“She was my wife!” Lucas roared, the sound shaking the room.
“She was a liability!” Julian shouted back, his hand dipping swiftly inside his suit jacket toward his shoulder holster. “And so is that little maid’s brat you’ve spent the last twenty-four hours doting on! You’re getting soft again, Lucas. And in our world, a soft boss is a dead boss.”
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Before Julian’s pistol could clear his holster, Lucas moved with the terrifying speed of a striking viper.
He vaulted across the mahogany dining table, sending plates, glasses, and silverware crashing to the floor in a chaotic explosion of porcelain and crystal.
