Chapter 6 - THE MORETTI THREAT
For two weeks, the routine continued.
Every night at midnight, Noel entered the penthouse. Every morning at four a.m., she left with two thousand dollars in clean cash.
The transformation in both of them was dramatic.
Noel paid off all of Ellis’s medical debts, bought him a high-end laptop for his programming classes, and rented a bright, clean two-bedroom apartment near the hospital. Her skin regained its healthy glow, and the dark circles beneath her eyes vanished.
Cassian changed even more.
The sharp, ruthless edge that had defined his leadership softened into a cool, brilliant calm. His men noticed it immediately. The Marchetti organization operated with unprecedented efficiency, securing new shipping contracts and crushing minor rival threats without firing a single shot.
On the fifteenth night, rain lashed against the penthouse glass with hurricane force.
Noel lay beside Cassian in the dark room, her head resting on his chest.
They were not sleeping yet. Cassian’s large hand was lazily tracing gentle circles on her lower back beneath her sweater, a gesture so naturally intimate that it made Noel’s breath catch in her throat every time he did it.
"Cassian?" Noel whispered into the quiet dark.
"Hmm?" he responded, his voice deep and rumbling against her cheek.
"Why don't you let anyone else near you?" she asked softly. "Leo told me you haven't slept in six years."
Cassian’s hand stilled on her back.
Silence stretched between them for several seconds before he spoke.
"Six years ago, my father and my brother, Marco, were invited to a peace summit by Don Vittorio Moretti," Cassian said quietly, his tone flat and cold. "I was supposed to go with them. But Marco told me to stay behind to manage the harbor inventory."
Noel listened, holding her breath.
"It was a trap," Cassian continued. "Vittorio had three gunmen inside the room. They executed my father and Marco in cold blood. I arrived twenty minutes later. I found them in a pool of their own blood."
His arm tightened around Noel’s waist, dragging her closer.
"That night, I took my father's ring off his finger," Cassian said, lifting his left hand in the dim light to reveal the plain gold band. "And I swore that I would destroy the Moretti family, no matter what it cost me."
"And the pouch over your heart?" Noel asked gently, her fingers drifting up to touch his chest.
Cassian froze.
He sat up slowly in the bed, looking down at her through the dark.
"You felt it," Cassian stated. It was not an accusation, but his tone was intensely serious.
"I felt it the first night," Noel admitted honestly, sitting up beside him, pulling the sheet to her chest. "I didn't steal anything, Cassian. I swear. I just... I noticed it."
Cassian reached down, unbuttoning the top two buttons of his shirt. He pulled out the black leather pouch tucked into the hidden interior pocket.
He unzipped it and pulled out a small, antique silver key and a folded, yellowed piece of paper.
"This key opens a private safety deposit box at the Federal Reserve Vault in Manhattan," Cassian explained, holding the key in the palm of his hand. "Inside that box is the master ledger of the Moretti family—a document that details thirty years of political bribery, murder contracts, and illegal shipping routes."
Noel gasped softly. "The proof to destroy them."
"Yes," Cassian said. "My brother Marco stole it the night he was killed. He managed to hide it before they shot him, and he left the vault location coded on this piece of paper."
He unfolded the yellowed paper, showing her rows of small, complex numerical coordinates.
"For six years, I have tried to break Marco's cipher," Cassian murmured, staring at the paper with profound frustration. "Vittorio Moretti knows I have the key, but he doesn't know where the ledger is hidden. If he finds out I haven't solved the code, he will launch an all-out war on my family."
Noel leaned closer, looking at the numerical coordinates on the paper.
"Cassian," Noel said suddenly, her eyes widening as she scanned the numbers. "These aren't geographical coordinates."
Cassian turned his head, staring at her. "What?"
"I took two years of advanced nursing and medical data systems before I had to drop out," Noel explained, reaching for her hardbound notebook on the nightstand. "These numbers... they match the old international hospital filing code for neurological patient archives!"
Cassian’s grey eyes flared with sudden, brilliant realization.
"Marco’s wife was a head administrator at St. Jude's Memorial," Cassian whispered, his voice rising with excitement. "He didn't hide it in a bank... he hid it in the hospital vault!"
Cassian grabbed Noel’s shoulders, pulling her toward him and planting a fierce, passionate kiss directly on her lips.
Noel gasped against his mouth, her heart exploding with heat and desire as her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him down onto the bed.
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For the first time, their touch was no longer about sleep.
It was about the roaring fire that had been building between them since the moment she stepped into his world.
