Emma jumped, quickly shutting the tablet.
Vincent was standing at the entrance of the conservatory, his dark trench coat draped over his arm.
He looked weathered from the boardroom battle, but his eyes locked onto her with piercing perception.
“Vincent,” Emma breathed, steadying her heartbeat.
“You’re back early.”
Vincent walked into the room, signaling Thomas to take Liam to the gardens.
Once the boy was out of earshot, Vincent pulled up a chair across from Emma and sat down, his expression heavy with unspoken burdens.
“Julian informed me an alert was triggered on the archive server,” Vincent said quietly, his tone lacking anger, filled instead with solemn resignation.
“You searched for David Carter.”
Emma felt a lump form in her throat.
She looked Vincent straight in the eye, refusing to shrink back.
“My father died of a broken heart after his business was destroyed, Vincent.
Everyone told me it was bad luck, bad accounting, bad contracts.
But why is his file locked in your family’s highest security vault?
What did Arthur mean when he told you to stay out of family matters?”
Vincent was silent for a long moment.
Outside, dark storm clouds were gathering over Lake Michigan, turning the water the color of bruised iron.
“I didn’t know who you were when you stopped Victoria at the banquet,” Vincent confessed, his voice rough.
“To me, you were just a remarkably brave woman who risked everything to protect my grandmother.
But after that night, when I ran your background check…
I discovered the truth about your father.”
“What truth?”
Emma demanded, her voice trembling.
“Your father didn’t go bankrupt by accident,” Vincent revealed, his eyes burning with an ancient remorse.
“Ten years ago, my brother Arthur used your father’s shipping line to smuggle unregistered weapons through the Great Lakes.
When your father found out and threatened to go to the FBI, Arthur forged documents framing him for fraud and bankrupted him overnight.
My father covered it up to protect the Moretti name.”
Emma stared at him, the room spinning around her.
“Your family… destroyed my father.”
Chapter 18 – The Gala of Reckoning
The annual Chicago Heritage Gala at the Palmer House Hilton was the crown jewel of the Midwest’s social calendar.
It was an event where political power, old money, and corporate titans converged.
Under normal circumstances, Vincent Moretti avoided such ostentatious displays.
Tonight, however, absence was not an option.
Arthur’s formal claim to the Moretti board had sent shockwaves through high society.
If Vincent hid inside his estate, the vultures would smell blood.
He needed to show the world that his grip on Chicago remained absolute.
The grand ballroom was a sea of crystal chandeliers, flowing champagne, and tuxedo-clad elites.
When the double doors opened and Vincent Moretti entered, the entire room seemed to hold its collective breath.
Beside him walked Emma Carter.
She wore a midnight-blue silk gown tailored specifically for her by Milan’s finest designers, accentuating her graceful neck and slender waist.
Her auburn hair was swept up into an elegant chignon, secured with diamond pins.
She did not look like a former waitress from the South Side; she held her head high, her chin lifted with an innate, quiet nobility that outshone every socialite in the room.
Whispers rippled like wildfire through the crowd.
“Is that the waitress from the Sterling banquet?”
“Vincent Moretti brought her as his personal guest?”
“Look at how he holds her…”
Vincent kept a protective hand firmly on the small of Emma’s back.
“You look magnificent,” he whispered close to her ear, his deep voice sending a shiver through her spine despite the cold tension in the room.
“I feel like I’m walking into a snake pit,” Emma murmured back, offering a polite, practiced smile to a passing senator.
“It is a snake pit,” Vincent agreed grimly.
“Keep your eyes open.
Julian has twenty plainclothes agents stationed throughout the ballroom, but Arthur thrives in public spectacles.”
As if summoned by the very mention of his name, a sudden hush fell over the eastern side of the ballroom.
A group of foreign dignitaries from the Eastern European consulate parted.
Walking right through their center, dressed in a bespoke charcoal tuxedo with a crimson silk pocket square, was Arthur Moretti.
Gasps echoed across the hall.
Guests backed away, stunned by the sudden reappearance of a man believed dead for half a decade.
Arthur walked with effortless arrogance, holding a glass of vintage champagne.
He smiled broadly, nodding to stunned acquaintances, his silver-streaked hair gleaming beneath the chandeliers.
He walked straight toward Vincent and Emma, stopping just three paces away.
Chapter 19 – The Viper’s Whisper
The tension between the two brothers was so thick it could be cut with a blade.
