Chapter 5 - The War Room at Moretti Plaza
By nine o'clock that evening, the storm outside had turned into a full-blown nor'easter, rain lashing against the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of my private penthouse office on the seventy-fifth floor of Moretti Plaza.
Down below, the glittering lights of Manhattan looked like a sea of diamonds, but inside the dark, mahogany-paneled room, the mood was lethal.
I stood behind my desk, holding a crystal tumbler of neat bourbon, staring at a giant digital display screen mounted on the wall.
On the screen was a complete, exhaustive dossier compiled by my private intelligence team over the last three hours:
Naomi Ellis. Founder of Ellis Creative Studio. Residence: Park Slope, Brooklyn. Financial standing: Stable, independent, zero debt. Daughter: Lily Ellis, age four.
Beside me stood Victor Vance, my chief legal counsel—a man who had successfully kept the Moretti family clean from state and federal prosecutors for twenty years.
“It’s airtight, Julian,” Victor said, tossing a thick blue folder onto my desk. “If you file an emergency paternity suit in New York State Supreme Court tomorrow morning, we can have a court-ordered DNA test issued within forty-eight hours. Given your financial standing and resources, you can easily secure joint custody—if not full legal guardianship—within three months.”
I didn't answer. I took a slow sip of the bourbon, the burn doing nothing to ease the tightness in my chest.
“However,” Victor added cautiously, leaning against the edge of the mahogany desk, “Naomi Ellis has a spotless record. She’s a respected business owner in Brooklyn, well-liked in her community, and there is zero evidence of neglect or instability. If you take this to a public family court, the media will feast on the Moretti name. Every enemy your family has ever made will know you have a vulnerable four-year-old daughter.”
The room fell into a heavy, suffocating silence.
Victor was right.
In my world, a weakness was a death sentence. For five years, my enemies—specifically the Russian syndicate operating out of Brighton Beach led by Grigori Petrov—believed I was an unshakeable, heartless tyrant with no personal vulnerabilities. If Grigori discovered I had a child, Lily wouldn't just be a daughter; she would be a target.
My desk phone chimed with a sharp electronic ping.
I pressed the speaker button. “Speak.”
“Boss,” Marcus’s voice came through the line. “We have a situation at the Park Slope residence.”
My hand tightened around the crystal tumbler so hard the glass groaned under the pressure. “What situation?”
“Two unmarked sedans have been parked down the block from Miss Ellis’s brownstone for the last hour,” Marcus reported. “Our surveillance team spotted two men taking high-resolution photographs of the front entrance and the second-floor windows.”
My blood turned to pure ice.
“Identify them,” I commanded, my voice dropping into a register that made Victor step back.
“We ran the license plates, sir,” Marcus replied nervously. “The vehicles are registered to a shell company owned by Petrov.”
The crystal glass in my hand shattered.
Bourbon and amber shards spilled across my desk, but I didn't feel a single piece of glass cut my skin.
Petrov.
The same bastard whose men had tried to blow up my car in Chicago five years ago. He hadn't just followed my movements at JFK; his intelligence network had picked up my sudden emergency motorcade deployment. He didn't know who Lily was yet, but he knew she was important to me.
“Deploy Teams Alpha and Bravo to Brooklyn immediately,” I ordered, stepping out from behind the desk, pulling my gun from the hidden drawer beneath the mahogany panel. “Full tactical lockdown on that brownstone. Nobody enters. Nobody leaves.”
“Julian, wait!” Victor shouted, stepping into my path. “You go there with armed men right now, Naomi will think you’re attacking her! You’ll ignite a war with the city police!”
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I checked the magazine of my weapon, racking the slide with a sharp, terrifying CLACK.
“I don't care about the police, Victor,” I said, looking him straight in the eyes. “My daughter is in that house. And if Grigori Petrov touches a single hair on her head, I will paint the streets of Brooklyn red.”
