Chapter 8 - The Digital Ledger
"She's right," Julie said, leaning against the kitchen island, wiping soot from her forehead with a trembling hand. She pulled a heavy, encrypted laptop out of her backpack and slammed it onto the marble counter. "While you two were having a family reunion in the alley, I downloaded the backup logs from your father’s main server using the backdoor bypass we set up three years ago."
I turned away from the barricaded door, my eyes narrowing. "You hacked my father's network?"
"I'm an IT security analyst, Adrian, not just a nanny," Julie shot back bitterly, her fingers flying across the keyboard. The screen flickered to life, casting a harsh blue glow across her face. "When Naomi disappeared five years ago, she didn't just take a payoff and run. She copied the operational ledger of every front company your family owns—including the offshore accounts funding the political buyouts, the judicial bribes, and the enforcement contracts."
Naomi stepped up beside the counter, shielding Lily with one arm while looking down at the scrolling green lines of data. "Your father didn't threaten me to protect his legacy," Naomi said quietly, her voice losing its edge, replaced by a devastating, chilling clarity. "He threatened me because I accidentally intercepted a transfer order involving the federal prosecutor handling your mother's estate case. I saw names, Adrian. Names of judges your family bought off to bury the truth about how your mother died."
The air left my lungs. My mother’s death twenty years ago had been ruled an accidental drowning at our summer house in Rhode Island. I had spent my entire life believing it was a tragedy.
"That's a lie," I whispered, though the words felt hollow even to me. "My father said her heart gave out."
"Your father drowned her in three feet of pool water because she threatened to expose the syndicate's laundering operations to the FBI," Naomi said, looking up at me, her storm-gray eyes swimming with unshed tears. "I found the digital coroner's report hidden inside a personal diary in your father's study the night before I left. That's why I ran. Not because I was scared of you—because I realized that loving a Moretti meant walking straight into a slaughterhouse."
Outside, the sound of the heavy iron door groaning under the impact of a hydraulic battering ram echoed through the concrete halls. We had minutes—maybe less.
"Adrian," Lily whispered, tugging gently on my trousers. She looked up at me with those exact same gray eyes, entirely unaware of the bloodline of monsters she had inherited. "Are the bad men going to break the door?"
I knelt down, looking straight into my daughter's face, feeling a cold, irreversible shift settle deep into my bones. The man who had walked out of that private jet an hour ago was gone. In his place stood something far more dangerous.
"No, sweetheart," I said, resting my hand gently on her small shoulder. "They're not going to break anything."
I stood up, pulled the Sig from my holster, checked the magazine, and looked at Julie and Naomi.
"Upload the ledger to every major news outlet and federal regulatory database on an automated timer," I ordered, my voice dropping into a tone that brooked no argument. "Set it for five minutes from now."
May you like
Naomi caught my wrist. "What are you doing?"
"Opening the door," I said, a dark, dangerous smile touching the corners of my mouth. "It's time to show my father what happens when you back a Moretti into a corner."
