Chapter 3 - The Ghost of the Waterfront
The morning room was silent save for the rhythmic, orange crackle of the birch logs burning in the massive stone fireplace. The air here was different—it smelled of aged leather, lemon oil, and the sweet, dry scent of old paper from the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. I sat on the edge of the green Chesterfield sofa, my hands wrapped around a cup of hot chamomile tea that one of the kitchen staff had brought me with a sympathetic, terrified look.
Emma was asleep, her small head resting on my lap, her breathing slow and heavy under the influence of the fever-reducing drops the family doctor had administered twenty minutes ago. The doctor, an elderly man named Dr. Bianchi who had served the Moretti family since the days of the old Don, had been quiet and professional. He had not asked why the mansion was in a state of lockdown, nor why there were armed guards stationed at the end of every corridor.
"A clean slate is a luxury of the poor. The rich must always paint over their old blood."
— Elena Moretti, Journal Entry, 1998
The heavy oak door of the morning room opened with a soft click.
Alessandro walked in. He had discarded his tuxedo jacket, his white linen shirt unbuttoned at the throat, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows to reveal the thick, pale scars that lined his forearms—reminders of the warehouse fire that had nearly claimed his life during his first year as head of the family. He looked tired, but it was the exhaustion of a predator that had finally spotted its quarry.
He carried a pink cardboard box with a pattern of faded blue cornflowers printed on the side. He set it on the low mahogany table between us.
"The child was correct," Alessandro said, sitting in the leather armchair opposite me. He reached down and opened the box. Inside lay the flesh-colored silicone mold, its realistic curves and medical-grade straps looking grotesque and artificial in the warm light of the fire. "It was exactly where she said it would be. Along with a binder of forged medical reports and a schedule of 'monthly milestones' Vanessa had drawn up to ensure her stomach grew at the proper, natural rate."
I did not look at the box. I looked at my hands, which were still red and rough from the industrial soap I used to clean his bathrooms.
"Why did she do it?" I asked, the question slipping out before I could stop myself.
Alessandro leaned back, his fingers interlaced over his knee. "The Cole family is bankrupt, Clara. The shipping lanes they control are dry. The container ships they own are fifty years old and rusting in the bays. They have been surviving on credit and the Moretti name for five years. If this marriage did not happen before the end of the fiscal quarter, their creditors would have dismantled their empire piece by piece."
He paused, his cold eyes studying my face.
"And they needed an heir," he continued. "A Moretti heir would have guaranteed them a permanent seat on our board. It would have secured a fifty-million-dollar trust fund that is legally locked until a child is born. Vanessa was never going to have my baby, Clara. She was going to 'miscarry' in her fifth month, or she was going to buy a child from one of the private clinics her family controls in Europe. Either way, they would have had their hands on my throat forever."
"And my husband?" I asked, my voice barely more than a whisper, the old, cold grief rising in my throat like bile. "Daniel. He worked on their docks. He told me there were things in the containers that didn't belong on the manifests. He was going to go to the federal inspectors. Then he died."
Alessandro’s face went completely still. The silence in the room grew so dense I could hear the rain stopping outside, the water dripping from the stone eaves of the roof with a slow, heavy plip-plip-plip.
"Your husband was not killed by a falling crate, Clara," Alessandro said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, leather-bound ledger, its pages yellowed and stained with what looked like old water. "Daniel was killed because he found the shipment manifests for the SS Victoria. A ship owned by the Cole Corporation. A ship that was carrying three tons of unlicensed automatic weapons destined for the southern ports. The man who signed the order to have him silenced was Senator Thomas Cole."
I felt a cold, hard knot form in my chest. For three years, I had believed I was a widow because of a broken cable, a greasy dock, and a moment of bad luck. I had cleaned the toilets of the people who had murdered the father of my child.
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked, my tears finally breaking, hot and silent against my cheeks. "I am a maid, Mr. Moretti. I cannot fight them. I cannot help you."
May you like
Alessandro leaned forward, his hand extending across the table until his fingers brushed the side of the pink box.
"You already have," he said. "Your daughter gave me the key to their vault. Now, I am going to use it to lock them inside."
