Chapter 4 - The Unmasking in the StudyThe color drained from Vanessa Romano’s face so fast she looked like a marble statue standing in the cold rain.
Beside her, Vincent went completely rigid, his hand twitching instinctively toward his inner coat pocket where his sidearm rested.
"Vincent," I commanded softly, not turning my head. "Touch that weapon, and Leo's sniper unit on the roof will put a hole through your chest before your fingers clear the leather."
Vincent froze mid-motion.
He looked up toward the third-floor stone balustrade, where two laser scopes glowed faintly red through the mist—operators loyal to Maya Reyes and my late father's original guard unit, whom I had quietly alerted forty minutes ago.
Vincent slowly withdrew his hand from his coat, bowing his head in total, terror-stricken surrender.
"Adrian...!" Vanessa stammered, stepping backward up the marble steps, her champagne glass trembling violently in her hand. "What... what nonsense is this?! Who told you this lie?!"
"Bring the files, Leo," I ordered flatly.
Leo stepped out from the secondary Maybach parked behind mine, carrying the sealed manila folder and the encrypted State Department forensic drive retrieved from Box 204.
We walked into the grand mahogany study on the main floor.
I set Lily down on the plush leather sofa near the roaring stone fireplace, handing her a juice box and her rabbit, before turning to face Vanessa and Vincent standing beneath the high chandeliers.
I tossed the certified DNA paternity report and the wiretap recordings retrieved from Thomas Bennett's personal vault flat onto the mahogany desk.
"Four years ago, Vincent," I spoke, my baritone dropping into a low, lethal register that made the room feel ice-cold. "You received a two-million-dollar wire transfer from Don Eduardo Romano’s offshore trust in Nassau."
Vincent swallowed hard, sweat beading along his hairline, zero words coming out of his mouth.
"Two days after that transfer," I continued, "Thomas Bennett was struck by a dark sedan in Red Hook. You logged his death as a hit-and-run, suppressed the police report, and brought Claire to this estate under the guise of charity... while keeping her under twenty-four-hour surveillance so she could never access a private lab."
Vanessa slammed her hands onto the mahogany desk, her face contorted in wild, desperate fury. "She was a servant, Adrian! You are the Don of the Moretti family! You were supposed to marry me and merge our empires! You weren't supposed to ruin everything for a mistake you made five years ago in Montauk!"
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I stepped close to her—close enough that my shadow completely engulfed her trembling frame.
"Lily is not a mistake, Vanessa," I whispered into the quiet room, my storm-gray eyes burning with an absolute, unyielding fury that made her knees buckle. "She is my daughter. She is the Donna of the Moretti family. And you... are finished."
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