Chapter 7 - The Collapse of the Inner Circle
At 1:00 PM, the Moretti corporate headquarters on State Street was in total chaos.
Phones were ringing off the hooks across three floors of executive suites. Secretaries were crying in the hallways. Four junior vice presidents had already gathered their personal belongings and left the building after news broke that the federal monitors had placed a temporary hold on Moretti Freight's operating licenses.
Inside the corner executive office, Vincent Moretti sat behind his massive black oak desk.
He hadn't slept in forty-eight hours.
His charcoal suit jacket was thrown over the back of a leather chair. His white shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, his dark hair messy, his green-brown eyes bloodshot and hollowed out by exhaustion and a dark, suffocating despair.
On the glass coffee table across from his desk sat two untouched bottles of expensive scotch.
Standing near the floor-to-ceiling windows were Arthur Ward and his daughter, Elena.
Arthur Ward—a thick-set man in his late sixties with white hair and a face usually seen on judicial portraits—was red-faced, shouting so loudly his voice rattled the glass panels.
"You told me the asset consolidation was seamless, Vincent!" Arthur roared, slamming his leather binder onto the coffee table. "You assured me your wife was non-voting! You assured me her family trust was locked down!"
Vincent didn't look at him. He was staring at a small wooden box on his desk containing a pair of silver cuff links Claire had given him on their fifth anniversary.
"Arthur," Vincent said softly, his voice dry as ashes. "Shut up."
"Don't you dare talk to my father that way!" Elena snapped, stepping forward, her ivory silk dress from Friday now replaced by a sharp navy business suit. "The Bank of New York just issued a formal notice of loan default twenty minutes ago! My father's reputation on the gaming commission is ruined!"
Vincent turned his head slowly, looking at Elena Ward.
The dark, terrifying edge that had made men fear him for twenty years flickered back into his eyes, cold, lethal, and utterly unyielding.
"Your father's reputation was bought with two million dollars of my money three years ago, Elena," Vincent said quietly. "And you stood on a stage at Harbor Point on Friday, pinning a falcon on your chest like a greedy child, while my wife was sitting in a car twenty yards away holding an ultrasound of my first child."
Elena went pale. "What?"
"She's pregnant," Vincent growled, standing up slowly from his desk, towering over them both like a shadow. "My wife is carrying my heir. And because of your desperate, arrogant need to play power politics in front of news cameras, she stripped my empire to the bone in seventy-two hours."
Arthur Ward stepped back, his red face turning white. "Vincent... we didn't know..."
"Get out," Vincent said softly.
"Vincent, listen to me—" Elena tried.
"GET OUT!" Vincent roared, the sound echoing through the steel and glass structure of the building like a mortar shell exploding.
Arthur Ward grabbed his daughter's arm, dragging her quickly toward the private executive elevator, the doors sliding shut behind them with a soft, terrified chime.
Vincent stood alone in his massive, silent office.
He walked slowly to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down thirty stories to the cold, rain-slicked streets of downtown Boston.
Down on the street, parked near the fountain, was a white sedan belonging to Callahan, Vance & Reed.
Vincent watched as the rear door of the sedan opened, and Claire stepped out, accompanied by Thomas Callahan and four private security guards.
She didn't look up at his thirty-floor tower. She didn't look left or right. She simply walked straight into the main lobby of the building—the building he had built, the building that now carried three hundred million dollars of her family's debt.
Vincent reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his phone.
He didn't call his security team. He didn't call his lawyers.
He called Daniel Pierce.
"Mr. Moretti," Daniel said, his voice quiet over the line.
"Where is she staying, Daniel?" Vincent asked, his voice breaking, tears burning his eyes once again. "Please. Just tell me where she's sleeping."
There was a long silence on the line.
"She's staying at her grandmother's house in Beacon Hill, boss," Daniel said softly. "The place with the white garden fence."
"Is she... is she alright?" Vincent choked out. "Is the baby alright?"
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"She ate lunch today, Mr. Moretti," Daniel replied gently. "She drank her tea. She's strong. She's stronger than any of us ever knew."
Vincent closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cold glass of the window, weeping silently in the empty tower while the world he had built burned to ashes around him.
