Chapter 2 - The Will of the Dead
The air in the grand ballroom turned so cold I could see my own breath.
My mother, Celeste Voss, stood at the base of the marble staircase as if frozen in stone. Her hands— hands that signed contracts worth more money than most people saw in ten lifetimes—were trembling. The wireless headset clamped around her ear blared with the anxious voice of her chief financial officer, but she didn't hear a word.
Her eyes were locked on Dante Moretti.
“You have no right to be in this house, Dante,” Mom spat, her voice laced with venom, though the subtle quiver in her chin betrayed her terror. “You walk into my home, uninvited, on my daughters’ birthday? Security!”
She snapped her fingers toward the grand entrance, expecting her six private security guards—former Secret Service officers paid six figures a year—to swarm the hall and drag Dante out.
Nothing happened.
Dante didn't even turn around. He just casually adjusted the cuffs of his tailored charcoal jacket.
“Your guards are currently resting in the guardhouse, Celeste,” Dante said smoothly. His voice was deep, smooth like aged bourbon, carrying a weight that commanded absolute authority. “I suggested they take a thirty-minute break. They were wise enough to agree.”
Mom’s face went completely pale.
Esme gripped my hand tighter. Her knuckles were white. Her wheelchair was positioned barely three inches from mine, and I could feel the tremors running through her frame.
“Ivy...” Esme whispered under her breath, her voice barely audible over the hum of the crystal chandeliers. “What did he mean about Dad?”
I didn't answer. I couldn't. I was looking at the photo Dante held out in his hand.
It was crisp, printed on heavy archival paper. The image showed two men standing shoulder-to-shoulder under the flickering neon sign of an old Brooklyn diner. On the left was Dante Moretti, ten years younger, without the silver at his temples or the dark scar beneath his left ear. On the right was our father, Julian Voss. He was wearing his signature silver-framed glasses, his smile bright and boyish, his arm thrown comfortably around the neck of New York’s most dangerous man.
They looked like brothers. Real brothers.
“My father died in a single-car accident on the Long Island Expressway,” I said, forcing my voice to remain steady despite the chaos roaring inside my chest. “The police said he fell asleep at the wheel.”
“The police said what your mother paid them to say,” Dante replied calmly. He stepped forward, ignoring Mom’s sharp gasp, and set the two beautifully wrapped gift boxes gently onto our lap trays.
One was wrapped in soft velvet silver; the other in deep crimson.
“Dante, don’t you dare!” Mom shouted, taking three swift steps down the stairs. “Do not fill their heads with your lies! You ruined Julian’s life! You drove him into paranoia!”
Dante turned slowly to face her. The softness in his eyes vanished, replaced by an expression so cold, so terrifyingly lethal, that even my ruthless billionaire mother stopped dead in her tracks.
“Julian called me forty-eight hours before his car hit that guardrail,” Dante said softly. “He told me that Voss Biotech had developed something he never intended to create. He told me he was being watched. He told me that if he suddenly disappeared, I was to look after his girls until their eleventh birthday.”
Dante looked back at Esme and me.
“Why our eleventh birthday?” Esme asked, her blue eyes wide with innocent wonder.
“Because today,” Dante said, pointing a finger toward the ceiling, “is the day your father’s personal trust fund legally matures. Today is the day you two inherit fifty-one percent of the voting shares in Voss Biotech—the shares your mother has been managing in your absence.”
My jaw dropped.
I looked up at Mom. She was standing beneath the massive oil painting of our father that hung in the foyer. Her breath came in short, jagged gasps.
“That’s why nobody came tonight,” I whispered as the horrible truth snapped into place like a puzzle piece. “The empty chairs. The canceled RSVPs. The fevers, the sudden trips... you did this, didn’t you, Mom? You canceled our party.”
Mom swallowed hard. She didn't deny it.
“I did it to protect you, Ivy!” she cried out, her voice breaking. “You don't understand how dangerous this is! You two are children! You are in wheelchairs! You cannot handle the vipers in that boardroom!”
“She didn't cancel the party to protect you,” Dante interrupted, his voice cutting through her desperate defense like a blade. “She canceled it because every major shareholder’s child was invited tonight. If those parents saw you two turning eleven, they would remember Julian’s will. They would start asking questions about why the company’s real heirs have been kept isolated from the world for four years.”
Dante knelt down in front of Esme and me. He was so close I could smell the faint scent of cedarwood, leather, and expensive tobacco on his suit.
He touched the velvet wrapping of the silver gift box on my lap.
“Open them,” he said gently. “Your father left these with me the night before he died. He made me swear on my life that I would only deliver them to your hands, face-to-face, when you reached this age.”
My hands were shaking as I placed my fingers on the silk ribbon. Beside me, Esme was doing the same.
May you like
“Ivy, Esme, stop!” Mom screamed, rushing down the remaining steps.
Before she could reach us, Dante’s two suited men stepped into her path, silently forming an impenetrable human wall between my mother and her daughters.
