Chapter 7 - The Night Moretti Tower Fell
Federal agents entered Moretti Tower at 9:43 p.m.
By midnight every floor had been sealed.
Employees were questioned.
Servers were confiscated.
Accounts were frozen.
Vittorio Moretti was removed through a private garage wearing handcuffs.
Television cameras still found him.
The image appeared on every major news channel before morning.
THE FALL OF A SHIPPING DYNASTY.
Khloe watched from a hospital waiting room.
Gabriel survived surgery.
The bullet had missed his heart by less than an inch.
Elena suffered bruising but no serious injury.
Lorenzo sat opposite Khloe with dried blood on his shirt.
Neither had spoken in nearly an hour.
Finally Khloe said, "What happens now?"
Lorenzo looked toward the television.
"Everything burns."
She understood.
Nathan's files did not distinguish neatly between Vittorio's crimes and crimes committed by Moretti Maritime under Lorenzo.
Lorenzo had spent years participating in illegal operations.
Orpheus might be worse.
That did not make Lorenzo innocent.
Federal prosecutors would discover all of it.
"Are you going to run?"
"No."
The answer surprised her.
"You could."
"Probably."
"Why aren't you?"
Lorenzo looked at her.
"Because then Vittorio was right."
Khloe swallowed.
"About what?"
"That survival is the only thing that matters."
He leaned back.
"I'm tired of surviving."
At seven the next morning two federal prosecutors arrived.
Lorenzo went with them voluntarily.
Khloe stood when agents approached.
He stopped in front of her.
"Go home."
"Which one?"
For the first time he smiled.
"Whichever one you choose."
"Are you coming back?"
His smile disappeared.
"I don't know."
Khloe reached for his hand.
He looked down at their fingers.
"No disappearing."
He met her eyes.
"That's an order?"
"I'm technically still your executive secretary."
"Company may not exist tomorrow."
"Then consider it freelance."
He leaned forward and kissed her forehead.
"I won't disappear."
Federal investigations lasted months.
News outlets became obsessed with the Moretti scandal.
Vittorio faced charges involving racketeering, bribery, financial fraud, conspiracy, obstruction, and multiple homicides.
Arthur Pendleton's death became another investigation.
Lorenzo admitted responsibility for crimes he could no longer justify.
But he also gave prosecutors access to networks they had been trying to penetrate for decades.
His cooperation changed the case.
So did Isabella Rosi.
Authorities recovered her remains from the bridge construction site.
Her funeral drew hundreds.
Khloe stood beside Isabella's younger brother, whom she had never met before.
Lorenzo attended under federal escort.
He placed one white rose beside the coffin.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
Khloe heard him.
Afterward he returned to custody.
Dominic Gallow negotiated his own agreement.
Mateo entered protective cooperation after Elena begged him to stop living as though dying young was a family tradition.
Gabriel remained in the hospital until he could testify.
The empire did not simply fall.
It confessed.
Moretti Maritime entered federal receivership.
Most employees had no involvement in crime.
Thousands of dockworkers, office employees, drivers, and legitimate contractors depended on the company.
Khloe became unexpectedly involved in saving them.
Investigators needed someone who understood the accounts.
Nobody understood them better than her.
She spent sixteen-hour days separating legitimate business from criminal transfers.
She remembered figures auditors had to search hours to locate.
Within weeks the government appointed an independent board to restructure Moretti Maritime rather than destroy it.
Khloe was offered a position.
Director of Financial Integrity.
She laughed when she saw the title.
"I'm twenty-three."
The government monitor shrugged.
"You found a seventeen-year conspiracy with coffee."
Fair.
Khloe accepted.
Her salary was higher than Lorenzo had originally offered.
She bought her mother a new home.
Paid her student loans.
Replaced her broken shoes.
She kept the shoes anyway.
They sat on a shelf inside her new office.
A reminder.
Six months passed.
Then came Vittorio's trial.
Khloe testified.
Vittorio watched her from the defense table.
He looked smaller.
Older.
He smiled when she entered.
"Miss Higgins."
The judge immediately reprimanded him.
Khloe sat.
Prosecutors asked about Nathan's ledger.
Isabella's files.
The ATLAS cipher.
The kidnapping.
Vittorio's attorney attacked her memory.
"Miss Higgins, you claim you can remember financial figures from childhood."
"Yes."
"Convenient."
"Usually annoying."
Several jurors smiled.
The attorney pressed.
"Isn't it true you had a romantic relationship with Lorenzo Moretti?"
Khloe paused.
"We kissed twice."
"Only twice?"
Khloe thought.
"Two and a half."
The courtroom laughed.
Even the judge struggled.
The attorney's face reddened.
"So you were emotionally attached."
"Yes."
"Meaning you would protect him."
"No."
Khloe looked toward Lorenzo, who sat with his attorneys awaiting separate proceedings.
"I told investigators everything he did too."
The courtroom quieted.
That answer mattered.
She loved him.
She did not lie for him.
Lorenzo understood.
Perhaps that was why he loved her.
Vittorio was convicted on every major count.
The judge imposed multiple life sentences.
He would never leave federal prison.
Gabriel received a reduced sentence in exchange for extensive cooperation.
Dominic disappeared into a witness-security arrangement that Khloe suspected he hated mainly because nobody treated him like a mob boss anymore.
Mateo received supervised release after prosecutors credited his assistance in dismantling Orpheus.
Lorenzo's case remained.
Unlike Gabriel, Lorenzo had personally ordered violence.
Unlike Vittorio, he had eventually helped expose it.
Prosecutors debated punishment.
Public opinion split.
Some saw him as another criminal attempting to purchase redemption.
Others saw a man who dismantled the organization that made him.
Khloe avoided social media.
Then, two weeks before Lorenzo's sentencing, something terrible happened.
A warehouse supervisor named Calvin Reece was found dead.
Calvin had recently agreed to testify about Arthur Pendleton's financial network.
Police ruled it suicide.
Khloe saw his final expense report.
One number was wrong.
Calvin never rounded cents.
Every report he submitted ended in exact transaction values.
His final document contained $18,400.00.
A perfectly rounded number.
Khloe stared.
Someone else prepared it.
Orpheus was not dead.
That evening she called Mateo.
"I think somebody survived."
Mateo arrived twenty minutes later.
They examined remaining accounts.
A hidden pattern appeared.
Small transfers.
Nothing large enough to attract auditors.
All moved after Vittorio's arrest.
Someone had inherited fragments of the network.
Khloe followed identifiers.
One name appeared repeatedly.
M. Russo.
She looked up slowly.
Mateo stared at the screen.
"That's not me."
Khloe's chest tightened.
M. Russo.
Mateo's father was dead.
His sister Elena's middle initial was A.
Only one other Russo had held access.
Marco Russo.
Mateo's uncle.
The Moretti family's longtime attorney.
A man everyone considered harmless.
A man who had represented Lorenzo since he was nineteen.
Khloe whispered, "We missed someone."
Then her office lights went out.
Mateo drew his weapon.
The emergency lights failed too.
Khloe heard the elevator open.
A familiar older voice spoke from the darkness.
"You really are your father's daughter."
May you like
Marco Russo stepped into the office.
And the gun in his hand was pointed directly at Mateo.
