Chapter 6 - Blood on the White Marble
By 4:00 AM, the estate grounds looked like a war zone.
Two armored SUVs from Vincent’s secondary security tier had arrived from the Boston docks, securing the perimeter and loading seven dead assailants into heavy vinyl body bags. The coastal rain washed gallons of blood off the white marble terrace into the dark Atlantic below.
In the private medical wing on the first floor, Dr. Marcus, Vincent’s personal physician, finished taping Clara’s fractured ribs and stitching a deep laceration across her collarbone.
“Two fractured ribs, severe contusions, mild concussion,” Dr. Marcus said, packing his surgical tray. “She’s lucky the stock of that shotgun didn't puncture her lung. She needs a hospital, Vincent.”
“She stays here,” Vincent said from the doorway, his eyes dark with exhaustion. “A hospital has records. Records draw Moretti’s men. Give her morphine and keep her monitored.”
When the doctor left, Vincent walked into the sterile room.
Clara was lying propped up on the medical cot, her face pale, an IV line dripping saline into her left wrist. Matteo sat in his wheelchair right beside her bed, his small hand gripping hers so tightly his knuckles were white. He refused to leave the room. Every time Dominic had tried to wheel him away, the boy had let out a furious, wordless scream until they relented.
Vincent stood at the foot of the bed. For the first time in his life, he felt stripped of his authority, naked in front of this woman who had risked her life for a child who was not her own.
“Why didn't you run?” Vincent asked quietly. “You could have slipped down the service stairs during the first breach. You could have been out the gates before they reached the second floor.”
Clara looked at him through heavy, pain-dulled eyes. A faint, humorless smile touched her lips. “I ran once, Vincent. Three years ago. When the paramedics brought Leo out of that wrecked car, I stood on the curb and froze. I couldn't move. I couldn't save him.”
She squeezed Matteo’s hand, her thumb gently stroking the boy’s wrist.
“I swore to God that if I ever saw a little boy facing a monster again, I wouldn't freeze. Not for Moretti. Not for you. Not for anyone.”
Vincent felt a knot tighten in his throat. He looked at Matteo. The boy was looking back at him, but the hollow, dead gaze was gone. In its place was something raw, protective, and unmistakably fierce.
“He spoke,” Vincent murmured. “He called your name.”
“Because you made him feel like a ghost, Vincent,” Clara said, her voice rough but unyielding. “You treated him like a broken piece of your own guilt. Children don't want your penance. They want to know you’ll fight for them.”
Vincent bowed his head. The weight of his own hubris crushed him. For fourteen months, he had hidden behind his monitors, watching his son through cold glass because he couldn't bear to look into the mirror of his own failures.
Dominic knocked twice on the open doorframe, stepping in with an encrypted satellite tablet.
“Boss,” Dominic said grimly. “We pulled the serial numbers from the weapons the hit team was carrying. They came from a shipment stolen out of the Charlestown naval yard three weeks ago. Only one broker had access to those crates.”
“Moretti,” Vincent said, his voice dropping into absolute ice.
“Worse,” Dominic said, his eyes flicking toward Clara, then back to Vincent. “We traced the encrypted frequency on their tactical radios. The signal originated from an abandoned fish processing plant on Pier 42. Marco Moretti is there right now, overseeing the loading of a freighter bound for South America. And Enzo is with him.”
Vincent reached down, his fingers gently brushing Matteo’s hair. The boy leaned into his touch for the first time since the blast on Commonwealth Avenue.
“Stay with Clara,” Vincent whispered to his son. “Watch over her until I get back.”
Matteo nodded slowly, his small jaw set in the exact same stubborn line as his father’s.
Vincent turned to Dominic, his eyes blazing with an unholy, methodical fury. “Mobilize every soldier we have left in New England. Heavy weapons, body armor, no sirens. Tonight, we end the Moretti bloodline.”
Clara struggled to sit up, wincing as her fractured ribs protested. “Vincent. Wait.”
Vincent paused at the doorway, looking back over his shoulder.
May you like
“Enzo,” Clara whispered, her eyes pleading with an agonizing, ancient sorrow. “Look into his eyes before you pull the trigger. Make sure he knows who sent you.”
Vincent nodded once. “I’ll bring you his watch.”
