Chapter 4 - The Poison in the Well
The Moretti penthouse in downtown Chicago was silent, save for the rhythmic clink of ice against an amber glass of Macallan.
Vincent sat in his leather armchair in the dark, the lights of the skyline casting long, cage-like shadows across the hardwood floor. On the glass table in front of him sat the cocktail napkin Anna had given him.
On it, she hadn't written a phone number or an address.
She had written three words: *Check the manifests.*
Across the room, the heavy oak door clicked open. Sophia walked in, wearing a silk robe, her face scrubbed clean of makeup. She looked fragile, anxious, her hands knotting the belt around her waist.
“Vincent?” she murmured softly, padding across the rug. “You haven't slept in two days. Come to bed, please. You’re scaring me.”
Vincent didn't move. He didn't take a sip of his scotch. He just stared at the cocktail napkin.
“Did you know she was alive, Sophia?”
Sophia paused mid-step. A flicker of something dark and terrified darted through her eyes before she smoothed it over with a practiced expression of pity.
“How could I possibly know that, Vincent? We all saw the plane blow up! It was a miracle she survived… but honestly, darling, don't you think it’s strange? If she survived, why didn't she contact you? Why did she hide for three years and suddenly reappear on the arm of Julian Vance—your biggest business rival?”
Vincent slowly turned his head to look at her. In the dim light, the sharp beauty that had captivated him in his early twenties seemed hollow. Manufactured.
“She says the emergency lock was engaged from the cockpit,” Vincent said evenly.
Sophia’s breath hitched. “She’s lying! She’s trying to poison you against me because she’s bitter! Think about it, Vincent! She was trapped, panicking, she probably tried to force the handle the wrong way—”
“You were sitting in the jump seat right behind the pilot before the turbulence started,” Vincent continued, his voice dangerously low, stripped of all emotion. “You told me you went to the front to get a bottle of water.”
“I did!” Sophia’s voice grew shrill. “I was getting water! Vincent, why are you interrogating me? I loved you! I stood by you when you were in that hospital! I held your head while you threw up from the grief! She abandoned you!”
“Did she?” Vincent stood up. He was six-foot-three, broad-shouldered, and when the lethal edge of the Moretti bloodline surfaced, he terrified even the city’s hardened politicians.
He towered over Sophia, his silver eyes flashing with predatory coldness.
“Tomorrow morning at ten o'clock, the Bennett Family Foundation is auctioning off the historical Bennett estate in Lake Forest,” Vincent whispered. “Anna’s childhood home. The home I bought out of foreclosure after her 'death' to keep it preserved in her memory.”
Sophia swallowed hard. “Why does that matter?”
“Because Anna will be there,” Vincent said, picking up his scotch and draining it in one long, burning swallow. “And Julian Vance will be bidding for her. I’m going to be there, too. And Sophia?”
He leaned down, his face inches from hers.
“If I find out that you had anything to do with that cargo door locking… there won't be a corner of this earth where you can hide from me.”
Sophia stepped back, trembling, her face completely pale. She turned on her heel and fled toward the guest wing.
Once the door clicked shut, Vincent pulled his encrypted smartphone from his pocket and dialed a number he hadn't called in three years.
“Marco,” Vincent said the moment the line connected.
“Boss?” his head of private intelligence answered instantly. “It’s two in the morning.”
“Pull the tail-number maintenance logs for the Gulfstream G650 from the night of the Montana crash,” Vincent commanded, his voice cold iron. “Every bank transfer from Sophia Carter’s private accounts between three years ago and today. And find out which hospital in the Pacific Northwest took in an Jane Doe burn victim with blunt force trauma thirty-six months ago.”
There was a stunned silence on the other end.
“Boss… you don't mean…”
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“My wife is alive,” Vincent whispered, his scarred hand clenching into a fist so hard the knuckles cracked. “And somebody tried to burn her to death.”
***
