Chapter 8 - VINCENT MORETTI NEVER DIEDVittorio’s first son had not died.
The story was another funeral without a body.
By then, I should have stopped being surprised.
My mother explained what little she knew.
Vincent Moretti was born when Vittorio was twenty-two.
His mother was a woman named Catherine DeLuca.
Vittorio never married her.
When Vincent was six, Catherine died in a house fire.
The official story said the boy died with her.
But decades later, Elena had found school records for a child named Vincent DeLuca in Pennsylvania.
Same birth date.
Same mother.
Same distinctive scar described in a childhood medical file.
Vittorio had apparently sent his son away.
“Why?” I asked.
My mother shook her head.
“I never knew.”
Preston did.
“I do.”
We turned.
He looked ashamed.
“Vittorio told me once when he was drunk.”
“Continue.”
“Catherine threatened to expose him.”
“For what?”
“He had started working with Vescari’s father. Smuggling. Extortion. Things Vittorio later tried to leave behind.”
“And Vincent?”
“Vittorio believed Catherine would use the boy against him.”
“So he faked his son’s death?”
“He sent Vincent to relatives under another name.”
“Then forgot him?”
“No.”
Preston looked toward the floor.
“He paid for everything secretly until Vincent turned eighteen.”
“What happened then?”
“Vincent came back.”
“When?”
“Before Anthony was born.”
My father had never known?
“Vittorio refused to acknowledge him publicly.”
There was the wound.
A firstborn son erased so a second family could become legitimate.
“What did Vincent do?”
“He disappeared again.”
“And spent decades destroying us?”
My mother nodded slowly.
“It fits.”
Vincent knew the family structures.
He had motive.
He was older than my father by nearly twenty years.
He could have built relationships with Vescari’s organization.
He could have used Charles, Michael, Lucinda, Preston—everyone—without revealing himself.
But a theory was not proof.
“We go to the cannery,” I said.
Marcus objected.
“Not the way they demanded.”
“Obviously.”
The plan was simple.
Which meant it would go wrong.
I would arrive with the ledger.
Marcus’s team would enter through old maintenance tunnels.
Police would remain far enough away not to trigger surveillance.
My mother insisted on coming.
“No.”
“The message asked for my ledger.”
“It asked for the ledger, not you.”
“Vincent hunted me for seventeen years.”
“Exactly.”
“He wants me there.”
“Exactly why you won’t be.”
She glared.
Gabriel said, “She’s going.”
I looked at him.
“You’re definitely not.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You’re sixteen.”
“And she’s my mother.”
“She’s mine too.”
That silenced both of us.
Strange.
One sentence had made the impossible real.
Our mother.
At eleven forty-five, I drove to the cannery alone.
The building had been abandoned for nineteen years.
Broken windows.
Rusted machinery.
River wind pushing through gaps in the walls.
A single light burned inside.
Michael sat tied to a chair.
Charles sat ten feet away.
Both alive.
A man emerged from the shadows.
He looked around seventy.
Tall despite age.
White hair.
Dark overcoat.
Scar across his left hand.
The black crown-and-serpent ring.
“Sebastian.”
His voice was gentle.
That frightened me.
“You’re Vincent.”
“Vittorio named me that.”
“You’ve spent a lot of effort making sure nobody remembered.”
“Quite the opposite. I wanted my father to remember every day.”
“By killing his family?”
“I did not kill Vittorio.”
“You poisoned my father.”
“Anthony made choices.”
“That isn’t a denial.”
Vincent smiled.
“You have his temperament.”
“Where is the page?”
“What page?”
“The page identifying you.”
“There never was one.”
He gestured toward the ledger.
“Elena got close. Anthony got closer. But neither knew my name until very late.”
“Why hide the letter?”
“Anthony did that.”
“Why remove page four?”
“Bianca removed it because she believed Lucinda was guilty.”
Again, everyone manipulated by incomplete information.
I held up the red ledger.
“This what you want?”
Vincent’s eyes sharpened.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Vittorio left something in it that belongs to me.”
“Your name?”
“My inheritance.”
I frowned.
“He left you money?”
“Not money.”
Vincent looked toward Charles.
“Tell him.”
Charles had blood on his face.
“Don’t.”
Vincent struck him.
“Tell him.”
Charles looked at me.
“Vittorio created an irrevocable trust before he died.”
“For Vincent?”
“For all descendants.”
“What’s special about that?”
“It controls voting ownership in Moretti Shipping, Moretti Properties, and the foundation.”
I understood.
Our legitimate companies.
Billions in assets.
“Vincent is Vittorio’s son. Why doesn’t he claim it legally?”
“Because the trust excludes any descendant convicted of crimes against the family.”
Vincent smiled.
“An irritating morality clause from a man who developed morality very late.”
“And the ledger proves your crimes.”
“Yes.”
“So you want it destroyed.”
“No.”
He extended his hand.
“I need one page.”
“Which?”
“The final one.”
There was no writing on the final page.
I had checked.
Vincent laughed.
“You never held it to heat.”
Invisible ink.
Of course.
He had spent decades searching for information Vittorio hid inside the ledger.
“What does it contain?”
“The access phrase.”
“To what?”
“Vittorio’s private archive.”
Charles groaned.
“Sebastian, don’t—”
Vincent raised a gun.
I tossed the ledger onto the floor between us.
“Take it.”
He studied me.
“Too easy.”
“I care more about Michael and Charles than an old book.”
“Do you?”
He smiled.
“You came armed.”
“I’m a Moretti at midnight in an abandoned cannery. I’d be offended if you thought otherwise.”
For the first time, he laughed.
Then a voice came from above.
“He gets that from me.”
My mother.
Damn it.
She stood on the metal catwalk holding a pistol.
Vincent’s face changed.
“Elena.”
“You should have killed me when you had the chance.”
“I tried.”
“Badly.”
He raised his weapon.
I moved.
Gunfire exploded.
Lights shattered.
Marcus’s team entered.
Michael threw himself sideways with the chair.
Charles crawled behind machinery.
Vincent fired toward the catwalk.
My mother ducked.
I tackled him.
We hit concrete.
He was old.
But strong.
His hand closed around my throat.
“You inherited everything that should have been mine.”
I punched him.
“You’re seventy years old and still blaming a child who wasn’t born.”
He drove a knee into my ribs.
We rolled.
His gun skidded away.
Then someone picked it up.
Gabriel.
Of course he had followed our mother.
His hands shook.
Vincent froze.
“You’re Anthony’s younger boy.”
Gabriel aimed.
“Stay down.”
Vincent smiled.
“You won’t shoot me.”
“No.”
Gabriel’s voice steadied.
“But he might.”
Marcus stood behind Vincent with his weapon raised.
The fight ended.
Police swarmed the cannery.
Vincent Moretti was arrested alive.
So were three men hiding outside.
Michael and Charles were freed.
My mother descended the stairs and grabbed Gabriel.
“What were you thinking?”
He looked at me.
I almost laughed.
“Apparently it’s hereditary.”
Then Marcus picked up the red ledger.
“The final page.”
We held it near an industrial heater.
Slowly, brown letters appeared.
Not an access phrase.
An address.
And a sentence.
FOR ANTHONY’S SON, WHEN HE IS READY TO END WHAT I BEGAN.
Vincent saw it.
For the first time that night, he looked afraid.
May you like
Whatever waited at that address frightened the man who had terrorized our family for decades.
And I intended to find out why.
