Chapter 8 - What Victor Took
Elena Moretti was missing.
Her security detail had been found unconscious.
Her car abandoned.
Victor wanted an exchange.
Elena for Danielle.
“No,” Adrien said.
Danielle stood across from him.
“He wants the ledger.”
“He wants you.”
“Then we use that.”
“No.”
“You don’t get to decide everything because you’re scared.”
“I absolutely do when the alternative is delivering you to a murderer.”
“Your mother is innocent.”
“So are you.”
Danielle approached.
“Adrien, listen to me.”
“I am listening. I simply hate everything you’re saying.”
They built a different plan.
Danielle would appear to arrive alone.
Police and federal agents would wait outside the perimeter.
Adrien would enter through an old service tunnel.
The exchange took place in a shuttered Moretti warehouse in Brooklyn.
Victor stood beside Elena.
A gun pressed against her shoulder.
Danielle entered carrying the ledger.
“You came.”
“You knew I would.”
Victor smiled.
“Adrien’s weakness has always been loyalty.”
“No,” Danielle replied. “His weakness was trusting you.”
Victor’s smile vanished.
She tossed the ledger onto the floor.
He bent.
Elena drove her heel into his knee.
Chaos erupted.
Adrien emerged.
Victor fired.
Danielle screamed.
The bullet missed Adrien and struck a steel beam.
Agents stormed the warehouse.
Victor seized Danielle.
His arm locked around her neck.
A pistol pressed against her temple.
Adrien froze.
“Let her go.”
Victor laughed.
“There he is. Antonio’s boy.”
Adrien slowly lowered his weapon.
Danielle saw what Victor wanted.
Not escape.
Punishment.
“You loved my father,” Adrien said.
Victor’s face twisted.
“I made your father.”
“And he chose Michael Carter over you.”
Victor’s grip tightened.
“He chose a bookkeeper.”
“No,” Danielle whispered.
Victor looked at her.
“He chose the truth.”
Victor’s attention shifted for one second.
Enough.
Danielle drove her elbow backward.
Adrien moved.
Agents tackled Victor.
The gun skidded away.
Within seconds, Victor Salerno—the man who had haunted two families for decades—was face down on concrete in handcuffs.
Danielle ran to Adrien.
He caught her.
“You promised.”
“I kept it.”
“Barely.”
Elena approached them, shaken but alive.
Then she looked at Danielle.
“You must be the secretary.”
Danielle blinked.
Adrien closed his eyes.
“Mother.”
“What?”
Danielle smiled.
“Former secretary.”
Elena looked at the way her son was holding Danielle.
“Clearly.”
For the first time in hours, Adrien laughed.
Victor was taken away.
And the war that had begun before Danielle ever entered Moretti Holdings was finally over.
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But peace brought a problem neither Danielle nor Adrien had expected.
Without danger between them, they had to decide what they actually were.
