Chapter 17 - SINS OF THE FATHER
“Get inside the luggage bay! Move!” Vincent roared over the deafening cacophony of gunfire.
Matteo returned fire with a short-barreled assault rifle, barking orders into his collar mic as Moretti perimeter guards surged from the hangars, guns blazing into the fog-shrouded tree line. The deafening roar of automatic weapons echoed off the metal buildings, turning the serene airstrip into a slaughterhouse.
I ducked low, clutching Hope beneath my coat with both arms, curling my body into a tight knot against the steel landing gear of the jet. Hope woke up, wailing in terror at the thunderous noise, her tiny body trembling against my ribs.
“Hush, baby, mommy’s here, mommy’s got you,” I sobbed, tears blinding me as bullet casings rained onto the concrete around us with musical, lethal pings.
A second sniper round punched straight through the Gulfstream’s left turbine, igniting the aviation fuel. A ball of orange flame erupted into the sky, the shockwave knocking Matteo off his feet.
“The plane is gone!” Matteo yelled, his face streaked with black soot. “They’ve boxed the runway! We can't take off!”
Vincent didn't panic. Through the smoke and fire, his mind worked like a master chess computer. He dragged me out from beneath the landing gear, pulling us toward the reinforced maintenance bay beneath the hangar floor.
“They didn't come to kill us,” Vincent shouted above the din as he kicked open the steel hatch leading to the underground service tunnels. “If Julian wanted us dead, that sniper round would have gone through your forehead, Clara. He wants the child! He wants Daniel’s bloodline!”
“Why?!” I cried out as we tumbled down the metal ladder into the damp concrete corridor beneath the airstrip. “What does a dead enforcer's baby have to do with the Sterling Syndicate?”
Vincent slammed the heavy vault door shut behind us, dropping the three-inch steel deadbolts into place. The sound of explosions and gunfire above became muffled, reduced to a dull, rhythmic thumping like the heartbeat of an angry giant.
Vincent stood panting in the dim amber emergency lighting of the tunnel. His expensive suit was torn, stained with soot and oil, and a jagged graze along his left forearm was bleeding steadily through his ripped linen shirt.
He looked at me, then down at Hope, who was sobbing into my chest.
“Because Daniel Bennett wasn't just my enforcer, Clara,” Vincent said, his voice dropping to a harsh, gravelly whisper. “And he wasn't born a Bennett.”
The concrete tunnel seemed to tilt beneath my feet. I pressed my back against the cold wall, clutching my screaming daughter. “What are you talking about? Daniel told me his parents died in a car accident in Ohio! He showed me the records!”
“Forged,” Vincent said, tearing a strip of cloth from his shirt with his teeth and wrapping it tightly around his bleeding forearm. “I paid three million dollars to forge them twenty-five years ago. My father had a mistress. An innocent woman who worked in the accounting department of our legitimate shipping firm. When my father died, the Commission decreed that any illegitimate heir had to be eradicated to prevent a war of succession.”
My mouth fell open, the air rushing out of my lungs. “No… no, that’s impossible…”
“I couldn't kill my own half-brother, Clara,” Vincent said, his eyes burning with ancient, agonizing pain. “I was eighteen. I had just taken the throne. I hid the boy. I gave him a new name, a new history, and when he was old enough, I brought him into my house under the guise of an enforcer so I could watch over him. Daniel was my brother.”
The world stopped. The wailing of my daughter, the distant thuds of the firefight, the rushing of water through the drainage pipes—everything faded into white noise.
*Daniel was a Moretti.*
Hope wasn't just the daughter of a loyal bodyguard. She was Vincent Moretti’s niece. She carried the pure, undisputed bloodline of the Moretti founding dynasty. And with Vincent and Elena having only a daughter—Grace—in a traditional syndicate that recognized only male or direct patrilineal claims to the Commission’s central vault, Hope’s lineage held the ultimate legal authority over the combined Moretti-Sterling empire.
“Vanessa knew,” I whispered, horrified realization dawning on me. “That’s why Vanessa wanted me dead! She didn't just hate me because I was a maid… she knew I was carrying the heir to the entire Commission!”
“And Julian knows that whoever controls Hope controls the keys to the supreme syndicate charter,” Vincent said grimly, chambering a fresh magazine into his sidearm. “Locker 409 doesn't contain money, Clara. It contains Daniel’s genetic sample, our father’s original will, and the legal proof that makes Hope the sole owner of every asset the Sterling family tried to steal.”
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Vincent stepped toward me, his bloody hand gently touching Hope’s tiny, tear-streaked forehead.
“We aren't flying to Chicago,” Vincent said, his jaw setting into impenetrable granite. “We’re taking the old freight line. And by tonight… I’m going to end the Sterling bloodline once and for all.”
