Chapter 4 - The House of Cards
"Father, what is it?" Giuliana Sforza asked, looking terrified.
"The Guardia di Finanza in Rome has just executed a freeze order on our media accounts," Count Sforza declared, his voice echoing under the high ceilings. "They cited an anonymous filing containing internal audit documents from Moretti Group’s joint shell accounts."
The room gasped in horror. The Guardia di Finanza was the feared Italian financial police. An audit from them meant ruin.
"That's impossible!" Vittoria Moretti shrieked, clutching her diamond necklace. "There must be a technical mistake! Adrian, tell them!"
Adrian stood frozen, his Scotch glass trembling in his hand. His mind was racing, trying to figure out how two massive financial disasters could hit his family within six minutes of each other.
He looked at the front door.
He looked at me.
I stood near the open doorway, my arm wrapped around my mother's shoulders, watching him with absolute, icy calm.
"Elena..." Adrian whispered, the realization finally breaking through his arrogant skull. "What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything, Adrian," I said softly, my voice carrying clearly across the silent room. "I simply stopped protecting you."
Matteo Castiglione turned toward me, his eyes sharp. "Elena... you hold the Marconi guarantee?"
"I am Marconi Holdings, Matteo," I replied flatly. "And as of eight-forty-five tonight, my foundation has formally severed all financial association with the Moretti family."
A collective wave of panic washed over the forty high-society guests.
Matteo Castiglione looked at Bianca Moretti—the woman he was supposed to marry in four weeks in a grand cathedral wedding. He took off the engagement ring promise pin from his lapel and threw it onto the marble floor at Adrian's feet.
"The wedding is off," Matteo declared coldly. "Castiglione Logistics will not tie its blood to a family of bankrupt frauds."
"Matteo, no!" Bianca sobbed, collapsing onto her knees on the floor. "Please!"
Count Sforza grabbed his daughter Giuliana by the arm, pulling her firmly toward the door. "Lorenzo," the Count said to Adrian's cousin, "the engagement is terminated. If you attempt to contact my daughter again, my lawyers will file a restraining order."
"Wait! Count Sforza, please!" Lorenzo pleaded, reaching out, but Sforza’s bodyguards stepped between them, shoving Lorenzo backward.
In less than ten minutes, three powerful northern dynasties had fractured. Three weddings were dead. The legendary Moretti merger had turned into a toxic wasteland.
Adrian took three frantic steps toward me, his eyes wild with terror. "Elena! You can't do this! We are married! You are carrying my child!"
I looked him straight in the eyes, my voice cutting through his panic like a razor.
"You slapped the woman who raised me, Adrian," I said. "You thought she was nobody because she didn't have a title or a villa. You forgot that everything you own was paid for by her daughter."
I opened the heavy oak door. Outside, a sleek black sedan was waiting for us, its engine idling in the cool Milan evening air.
"Elena, wait!" Adrian screamed, reaching for my arm.
Before he could touch me, the sedan driver—a broad-shouldered man named Marco whom I had hired three years ago to manage Marconi security—stepped out of the vehicle and blocked Adrian's path with a stone wall of meat and muscle.
"Touch her," Marco warned Adrian in a low, gravelly rasp, "and I won't just slap you."
I helped my mother into the back seat of the sedan, stepped in beside her, and closed the door.
May you like
As the car pulled away down the gravel driveway of the Moretti villa, I looked out the rear window.
Adrian was standing on the grand steps in his ruined tuxedo, surrounded by crying relatives and furious former allies, watching his empire burn into ash.
