Chapter 9 - The Family Business
The study seemed to shrink around me as my father’s words hung in the stale air.
“Michael’s father?” I echoed, my voice shaking so badly I could barely form the syllables. “Arthur Vance? The lawyer?”
“The very same,” Dad nodded grimly, leaning back against the leather cushion. “Arthur never forgot that trial. He spent twenty years trying to track down the hidden offshore accounts the government missed when I turned informant. When Michael joined Arthur’s firm, he wasn't looking for a corporate partnership—he was looking for our family ledger. And your mother... your mother grew tired of suburban golf clubs and PTA meetings a long time ago. She wanted back into the life she left behind.”
I stared at him, pieces of a terrifying puzzle slamming violently into place. The late-night meetings, the sudden financial transfers, the prenuptial asset-shielding scheme—it wasn't just my fiancé betraying me. It was a calculated, multi-generational vendetta executed right under my nose while I picked out flowers for a wedding that was never meant to happen.
“And the man in the car tonight?” I asked, my voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “The one she handed the manila folder to outside?”
“Viktor Moretti,” Dad said quietly. “My cousin. The only person from the old guard who didn't go to federal prison when the indictment came down. He’s been waiting twenty-five years to collect what he claims was stolen from the family.”
My mind raced. If Viktor Moretti had my father’s original federal cooperation files, he didn't just have leverage over our money—he had a death sentence for my father. The syndicate didn't care about statutes of limitations when it came to informants.
“We have to go to the police,” I said, reaching for my phone on the desk. “Or the federal marshals. If Viktor has those files—!”
“The police won't help us, Sandy,” Dad interrupted, his voice cutting through my panic like a knife. “Half the local precinct is still on Viktor’s payroll. If we involve conventional law enforcement, they’ll intercept the file before it ever reaches a federal judge, and we’ll both end up at the bottom of the East River before dawn.”
I lowered my hand, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs. “Then what do we do? Just sit here and wait for them to come take everything?”
A strange, cold light flickered in my father’s eyes—the ghost of the man who used to run numbers and manage billion-dollar waterfront cartels before he traded it all for a suburban lawn. He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out an old, encrypted satellite phone that looked identical to the one I had seen in Michael’s office, and tossed it onto the desk.
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“No,” my father said, standing up from his chair with a terrifying, steady resolve. “We don't wait. Viktor thinks I’m a broken old man hiding behind a suburban mortgage. It’s time to remind him who taught him how to run the docks in the first place.”
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