Chapter 8 - The Dinner of Reckoning
At eight o'clock sharp, the heavy chandelier in the grand dining room cast a warm, golden glow across a fifteen-foot mahogany table set with fine china and sterling silver.
Sitting at the far end of the table was Anthony Moretti.
He was fifty-eight years old, with slicked-back gray hair, a heavy gold watch on his wrist, and a face that held a permanent expression of arrogant entitlement. He cut his steak with practiced precision, taking a sip of red wine.
Dominic sat at the head of the table. I sat to Dominic’s right, dressed in a simple navy dress, my hands folded tightly in my lap.
Anthony set his fork down, looking across the table at me with a cold, dismissive smirk.
“I must say, Dominic,” Anthony drawled, leaning back in his leather chair. “I was surprised when you invited me to dinner tonight. Even more surprised to see a former low-level clerk from our accounting department sitting at the family table.”
“Anna isn't a clerk tonight, Uncle,” Dominic said smoothly, taking a sip of water. “She’s sitting here as the primary shareholder of the New Jersey Port Logistics Holding Corporation.”
Anthony’s smirk faltered for a fraction of a second. He wiped his mouth with his cloth napkin, scoffing softly. “I don't know what kind of joke you’re playing, nephew. Elena Carter was a secretary. Her daughter was an hourly auditor. They don't own a single nail in our shipping docks.”
Dominic reached beside his chair and pulled out the thick leather binder containing the original testamentary trust deed signed by Vincent Moretti.
He slid it across the mahogany table. It hit Anthony’s wine glass with a sharp clink.
“Read section four, Anthony,” Dominic said flatly.
Anthony picked up the folder, his eyes scanning the yellowed pages. As he reached the final signatures, his face slowly turned red, the veins along his neck bulging against his collar.
“This is a fake,” Anthony growled, slamming the binder down. “Vincent was out of his mind during his final years! He had no legal right to assign company assets to an outsider!”
“The contract was drafted twenty years ago, Anthony,” I spoke up, my voice steady and firm, looking my mother’s tormentor straight in the eye. “When Vincent was in perfect health. And it was notarized by the Chief Justice of the New York State Supreme Court.”
“You think you can just walk in here and take twenty-five percent of my shipping empire?!” Anthony roared, standing up so fast his chair scraped violently against the floorboards. “I built those docks! I managed the union contracts! You are nothing!”
“She isn't taking anything, Anthony,” Dominic said calmly, standing up to his full height, instantly towering over his uncle. “She is claiming what was legally given to her family. And as for your management of those docks...”
Dominic snapped his fingers.
The double doors of the dining room swung open.
Marco walked into the room, pushing Frank Sterling ahead of him. Sterling was trembling, his hands bound in front of him, holding a stack of bank ledger printouts.
Anthony’s face turned from red to a terrifying, pale white.
May you like
“Frank...?” Anthony stammered, stepping back.
“He told us everything, Uncle,” Dominic said, his voice dropping into a razor-thin tone of absolute authority. “The embezzlement from the shipping union pension funds. The offshore shell accounts in Panama. And the fifty thousand dollars you paid him to forge my signature and erase Anna’s employment file.”
