Chapter 6 - Bloodline and Deception
By Thursday morning, Manhattan was consumed by the resurrection of Anna Bennett Moretti.
The financial press exploded. Stock prices for Moretti Enterprises fluctuated wildly as rumors of the Vance Capital buyout leaked to Wall Street. But behind the closed doors of Vincent’s Upper East Side penthouse, a different kind of war was brewing.
Vincent sat in his darkened study, surrounded by old photographs of our wedding. Stacks of private investigator reports littered his desk.
The door burst open, and his chief security investigator, Mark Thorne, entered out of breath.
“Mr. Moretti. We pulled the surveillance footage from the Swiss schools and the Vance compound in Geneva.” Thorne laid three high-resolution photographs on the desk.
Vincent’s breath hitched in his throat.
The photograph showed a playground bathed in afternoon sunlight. A little boy, roughly three years old, was laughing on a swing. He had thick, curly black hair, a sharp, intelligent face, and eyes of piercing sapphire blue.
Behind the boy, pushing the swing with a radiant, maternal smile that Vincent hadn't seen in four years, was me.
“His name is Leo,” Thorne said cautiously. “He was born on October 15th, three years ago. The exact day after the crash, Mr. Moretti.”
Vincent stood up so fast his heavy leather chair crashed backward against the bookshelf. He picked up the photograph with shaking fingers, his thumb tracing the curve of the child’s cheek.
“He lived…” Vincent breathed, a wild, delirious laughter bubbling from his chest alongside fresh tears. “My son lived! He’s alive! Anna saved him!”
“There’s something else, sir,” Thorne said, his expression grim. “You asked me to look into the maintenance records of the private jet prior to the emergency landing.”
Vincent’s laughter died instantly. “What about them? The NTSB ruled it an auxiliary fuel valve malfunction.”
“It was,” Thorne agreed, “but the maintenance sensor had flagged that valve forty-eight hours before your flight to Aspen. The mechanic who cleared the flight log wasn't Daniel Reyes. It was an independent contractor named Davis.”
“Why would Davis clear an unsafe plane?” Vincent demanded, his voice dropping into a dangerous growl.
Thorne opened a bank record folder. “Because a wire transfer of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars was deposited into Davis’s offshore account the day before. The wire originated from a shell corporation registered in the Cayman Islands called 'SC Holdings.'”
Vincent stared at the initials.
*SC.*
*Sophia Carter.*
“No…” Vincent muttered, shaking his head in violent denial. “No, she wouldn't. She was on that plane! She was flying with us!”
“She knew the plane had an emergency protocol that would force an immediate landing at the nearest executive strip thirty minutes outside New York,” Thorne explained remorselessly. “She knew an emergency would cause chaos. What she didn't anticipate was the auxiliary fuel tank rupturing upon touchdown. She wanted a scare, Mr. Moretti. She wanted to prove to you that life is fragile so you would leave your pregnant wife and marry her. But she nearly killed everyone on board.”
A cold, sickening dread poured through Vincent’s veins like liquid nitrogen.
Every word Sophia had whispered to him over the last three years—every time she dried his tears, every time she told him that Anna’s death was an unavoidable tragedy, every time she nudged him to sign over Bennett trust authorizations—echoed in his mind like the mocking laughter of a demon.
He had abandoned his wife and unborn child in an inferno for a woman who had set the match herself.
The study door clicked open.
Sophia walked in, holding a bridal magazine, wearing an ivory silk robe. “Vincent, darling, the florist is asking if we should use white lilies or—”
She stopped.
Vincent was looking at her. It was a look that would have terrified a condemned prisoner.
He didn't scream. He didn't throw anything. He simply walked over to her, his towering six-foot-two frame casting a dark, suffocating shadow over her petite body. He held up the bank statement and the photograph of the wire transfer.
“Explain this, Sophia,” he said, his voice terrifyingly quiet.
Sophia looked down at the paper. The color drained from her lips, her eyes widening in sheer, unadulterated terror.
“Vincent… I… I can explain…”
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“Did you touch my plane?” Vincent asked, stepping closer, his voice vibrating with barely restrained homicidal fury. “*Did you touch the plane carrying my child?!*”
***
