Chapter 10 - The Retribution Begins
Vincent held his breath. He didn't dare move, terrified that the slightest twitch would frighten the child away.
Leo took two hesitant steps forward, clutching the bear to his chest. He looked at Vincent’s soaking-wet suit, then tilted his head.
“Why is the man crying?” Leo asked, looking up at Anna.
Anna’s heart seized. She looked down at Vincent, who was looking at the boy as if he were staring at an angel sent to grant him salvation. The raw, desperate hunger in Vincent’s eyes—the unadulterated paternal ache—was undeniable.
“He’s… he’s just sad, Leo,” Anna said softly, her voice wavering for the first time.
Leo looked back at Vincent. Slowly, the little boy extended his small hand and offered the stuffed bear toward him. “Don't cry. Barnaby will keep you safe.”
A broken sob ripped through Vincent’s chest. He reached out with hands that had commanded armies and signed multi-million-dollar executions, but now shook like dry leaves. He gently touched the soft ear of the toy.
“Thank you, Leo,” Vincent whispered, his voice cracking. “You’re very brave.”
“Leo, go back to Clara, please,” Anna said, her tone gentle but firm.
The boy nodded obediently, turned, and ran back toward the play area.
Anna looked down at Vincent. Her jaw hardened again, though the absolute ice had melted into something far more dangerous: complicated, unresolved torment.
“Stand up, Vincent,” she said quietly. “You look pathetic.”
Vincent rose slowly, wiping the tears from his face with the back of his soaked sleeve. “Anna, what do you want from me? Tell me what to do. I’ll do anything.”
“You want to be in his life?” Anna asked, her eyes boring into his. “Then you earn it. Not with your money. Not with your bloodline. You step down from the Moretti syndicate. You cut every illegal tie, every shady contact, every violent enterprise your family has run for fifty years.”
Vincent didn't hesitate. “Consider it done.”
“And you sign over the voting rights of Moretti Maritime to Vance Global,” she added ruthlessly. “Julian Vance saved my son’s life. He will have a permanent seat at the table of your family’s legacy.”
Vincent flinched. Julian Vance was his greatest rival. Handing him the keys to Moretti Maritime was corporate suicide.
Yet Vincent looked at the hallway where Leo had just disappeared.
“I will have the contracts on your desk by tomorrow morning,” Vincent replied, his voice dead steady.
Anna looked at him, slightly taken aback by his immediate surrender. The Vincent Moretti she had married would have burned the city to ash before ceding an inch of territory to an outsider.
“You have a long way to go, Vincent,” Anna said, turning toward the window. “Get out of my house.”
Vincent took a deep, shuddering breath. “Thank you for letting me see him.”
He turned and walked toward the elevator.
Just as the doors were about to close, Anna’s voice drifted across the room:
“Vincent.”
He stopped the doors with his hand, looking back with desperate hope.
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“Watch your back,” she warned coldly. “Sophia is cornered. And a cornered animal doesn't care who it bites.”
***
