Chapter 6 - The Ashford Retaliation
The explosion didn't happen in the dark. It happened at two o'clock on Tuesday afternoon, right on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
MORETTI LOGISTICS SUSPENDED FROM TRADING PENDING FEDERAL INVESTIGATION.
The headline flashed in red across every financial terminal in the country. Within minutes, television news vans were lined up six-deep outside Moretti Tower on Madison Avenue.
The Ashfords had struck back.
Julian had fled the city at dawn, taking a flight to London after texting me a frantic apology and forwarding a copy of a federal leak he had received from a contact in the Department of Justice. Victoria's father, Marcus Ashford, had used his influence on the Federal Maritime Commission to freeze Moretti Holdings' operating licenses across three East Coast ports, alleging illegal weapons transit and cartel-linked money laundering.
It was a decapitation strike. Without those licenses, Moretti Holdings was bleeding twelve million dollars an hour in maritime penalties.
I sat in my Greenpoint loft, my laptop screen split between stock tickers and private surveillance channels that I still had access to through my administrative backdoor.
On feed three—the executive boardroom on eighty-two—the scene was pure butchery.
Seven board members, led by Marcus Ashford’s personal proxy, were shouting at Adrian across the obsidian table. Adrian sat at the head, stone-faced, his tie loosened, a thick stack of legal briefs sitting unread before him. Daniel Russo stood behind him like a sentry, one hand resting subtly beneath his suit jacket where his shoulder holster lay.
“You threw away the alliance of a century for a personal whim!” an elderly board member was screaming through the audio monitor. “The Ashfords control the regulatory board! If you don't sign the reconciliation agreement with Victoria by midnight, the banks will call our revolving credit facilities! We’ll be in receivership by Monday!”
Adrian didn't flinch. He didn't even raise his voice.
"Then call the receivers," Adrian said coldly. "And tell them to bring armed escorts. Because the first man who attempts to enter my offices with a seizure order will leave in an ambulance."
“You're insane!” the proxy shouted. “Your father built this company on blood and pragmatism! You are throwing it away for nothing!”
"My father is dead," Adrian said, rising to his full, towering height. The boardroom went instantly, terrifyingly quiet. "And this company belongs to me. Meeting adjourned."
He turned and walked toward his private office, slamming the heavy walnut door behind him.
I closed the laptop. My hands were shaking so violently I had to press them flat against the cold wood of the kitchen island.
He was destroying himself.
Adrian Moretti—the most calculating, brilliant strategist I had ever known—was willingly letting an empire burn to the ground because his pride wouldn't let him crawl back to Victoria Ashford.
Because of me.
The realization was a physical weight in my chest. If I stayed in Brooklyn, if I kept running, the Ashfords would strip him of his public empire. They would force him back into the underworld shadows, where survival wasn't measured in quarterly dividends, but in blood and retaliation.
For six years, my job had been to protect him from his worst instincts.
I looked at the platinum keycard sitting on my desk beside the dried gardenia.
May you like
At six-thirty, I showered. I pulled my hair into a sleek, severe chignon. I put on a tailored black pantsuit from my executive days, slipped the keycard into my pocket, and called a private town car.
It was time to stop being the woman who ran.
