Chapter 7 - THE KING WITHOUT A CROWN
The trap belonged to Serena.
That irritated every man in the room.
Which was partly why she knew it would work.
“Ventresca expects Lucian to behave like Lucian,” she said.
Marco frowned.
“And what does that mean?”
“Armed convoy. Threats. Negotiation built around power.”
Lucian leaned against the conference table.
“And your alternative?”
“We give him something he wants more than Leo.”
“Nothing matters more to him than succession.”
Serena placed a corporate file on the table.
“Yes, it does.”
Moretti Atlantic.
The legitimate company controlled ports, warehouses, customs contracts, and hundreds of millions in annual freight.
Ventresca did not need a symbolic heir if he could control the machine itself.
Serena proposed announcing a shareholder transfer.
Her forty-nine percent for sale.
Publicly.
Lucian stared at her.
“You’re offering him my company.”
“Our company.”
A pause.
Lucian nodded.
“Our company.”
The announcement spread by noon.
At 4:16, Serena received the call.
Carlo Ventresca’s voice was older than she expected.
“You sound like your father.”
Serena’s skin prickled.
“You knew him?”
“Better than Moretti ever did.”
“Which Moretti?”
Carlo laughed.
“Clever.”
He offered a meeting.
Serena accepted.
Lucian nearly exploded when she told him she intended to attend.
“You are not walking into a room with him.”
“I’m the person he called.”
“You gave birth eight days ago.”
“And apparently that has become everyone’s favorite argument.”
“He wants our child.”
“Which is why he won’t expect me to come.”
Lucian paced away.
Serena watched him.
“You said I get to choose.”
He stopped.
Every instinct in him screamed against it.
Finally:
“You do.”
The meeting took place in an abandoned private terminal near the Hudson.
Serena entered wearing a wire.
Lucian listened from a surveillance vehicle two blocks away.
Carlo Ventresca was seventy-three.
Silver hair.
Dark suit.
Walking cane.
He looked less like a monster than Serena expected.
That frightened her.
“Mrs. Moretti.”
“Mr. Ventresca.”
“Where is the child?”
“Safe.”
“And Lucian?”
“Not here.”
Carlo smiled.
“That I don’t believe.”
Serena sat.
“You wanted my shares.”
“I want what your husband’s family stole.”
“My father’s shares?”
Carlo’s smile vanished.
“Your father stole too.”
The conversation unfolded like a knife.
James Vale had discovered Vittorio laundering money through Moretti companies.
He planned to expose him.
Lucian’s father supported James.
Both men intended to dismantle the criminal side of the organization.
Vittorio killed Lucian’s father.
But James escaped.
For a while.
“Your father’s car accident,” Carlo said, “was not an accident.”
Serena stopped breathing.
Her father had died when she was twenty-two.
Drunk driver.
Rain.
Wrong place, wrong time.
That was what she had believed for thirteen years.
“Who killed him?”
“Vittorio.”
Serena’s eyes filled.
“And you?”
Carlo looked almost regretful.
“I failed to stop him.”
“Then why work with him now?”
Carlo smiled.
“Because revenge makes strange partnerships.”
Serena understood.
“You’re using Vittorio.”
“As he used everyone.”
“And Leo?”
Carlo leaned forward.
“Your son is the final Moretti heir. With him under my protection, Lucian would surrender everything.”
“Protection?”
Serena’s voice sharpened.
“You sent armed men into my home.”
“A regrettable excess by Vittorio.”
“Convenient.”
Carlo’s expression hardened.
“You think Lucian is different?”
“Yes.”
The answer surprised even Serena.
Carlo noticed.
“After everything?”
Serena held his gaze.
“He has failed me. Lied to me. Controlled things he had no right to control.”
Her voice steadied.
“But when I told him to change, he listened.”
In the surveillance van, Lucian closed his eyes.
Carlo stood.
“That weakness will destroy him.”
“No.”
Serena rose too.
“It might save him.”
A gunshot shattered the terminal window.
Carlo collapsed.
Chaos erupted.
Lucian’s team moved.
Serena dropped behind the table.
Another bullet struck metal.
Lucian burst through a side entrance.
“Serena!”
“I’m okay!”
Carlo was bleeding from the shoulder.
The shooter vanished across the rooftop.
But Bianca’s team intercepted a vehicle three blocks away.
The driver was Daniel Rusk.
The passenger was Vittorio Moretti.
By midnight, both men were in custody.
Carlo survived.
And with federal evidence linking Vittorio to murder, kidnapping, financial fraud, and weapons trafficking, the empire Lucian had inherited began collapsing.
Serena expected him to fight to preserve it.
Instead, he did something no Moretti man had done in generations.
He surrendered every illegal operation to federal investigators.
Marco stared at him.
“You understand what this means?”
“Yes.”
“Half the organization will call you weak.”
Lucian looked through the glass at Serena holding Leo.
“Then they misunderstand strength.”
For the first time in his adult life, Lucian Moretti chose his family over his kingdom.
May you like
But Serena still had one choice left.
Whether choosing correctly now could repair seven years of being chosen second.
