24: The Ghost of Sicily

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

POV: Julian Vane

The elevator ride down to the lobby felt like a descent into an ice bath. Beside me, Dante was a statue of obsidian jaw locked, eyes fixed on the shifting floor numbers. I could feel the cold radiation of his fury, but beneath it was something I hadn't sensed in him since the night of the Cathedral.

Fear. Not for himself, but for the fragile, beautiful empire we had built in the wreckage of our families.

The doors slid open to the private garage. Standing beside the idling vintage Bentley was a man who looked like a sepia-toned photograph of Dante thirty years into the future. Vincenzo Moretti was lean, his skin like weathered parchment stretched over a sharp, aristocratic skull. He wore a heavy wool overcoat despite the climate-controlled air, and he leaned on a cane topped with a silver wolf’s head.

He didn't look like a monster. He looked like a grandfather. Until you saw his eyes. They were the same dead, bottomless black as Dante’s, but without the spark of humanity I had fought so hard to find.

"Dante," the old man rasped. The voice was a dry rattle, like dead leaves on a grave. "You’ve grown tall. And the building... it’s very shiny. Very American."

"Father," Dante said. He didn't move to embrace him. He didn't even offer a hand. "Sicily was supposed to be your final resting place. Why are you on my tarmac?"

Vincenzo’s gaze drifted from Dante to me. He looked at my suit, my hair, and finally, the silver ring on my finger. His lip curled in a sneer that felt like a physical slap.

"I heard rumors in Palermo," Vincenzo said, ignoring Dante’s question. "They said the Lion of the Morettis had taken a wife. But they didn't tell me the wife was a Vane. And they certainly didn't tell me... it was a boy."

The silence that followed was deafening. Marco and the other guards looked at their boots.

Dante stepped in front of me, his shadow shielding me from the old man’s gaze. "His name is Julian. He is my husband, and he is the reason the Vane shipping lanes now belong to us. He is a Moretti in every way that matters."

Vincenzo let out a dry, hacking laugh that turned into a cough. He wiped his mouth with a silk handkerchief and peered around Dante’s shoulder at me. "A Moretti? A Moretti is someone who carries the blood to the next generation. A Moretti is someone who understands that we do not break bread with the rats who stole our piers in 1994. This... this is a plaything, Dante. An expensive, pretty plaything."

I felt the heat rise in my chest, but I didn't let it reach my face. I stepped out from behind Dante, meeting Vincenzo’s dead eyes.

"I’m the auditor who found the fifteen percent Silvio was stealing from your retirement fund, Vincenzo," I said, my voice as cold and clear as a winter morning. "And I’m the one who ensured the Jimenez brothers didn't turn this city into a Mexican province while you were sipping limoncello in Sicily. I don't carry the blood, but I carry the ledger. And in 2026, the ledger is what keeps your son alive."

Vincenzo’s eyes narrowed. He looked at me with a newfound, poisonous interest. "He speaks. The little bird has a beak."

"He has more than a beak, Father," Dante growled. "He has my absolute confidence. If you’re here to cause a rift, you can get back in that car and fly back to the Mediterranean. I won't ask a second time."

Vincenzo leaned heavily on his cane, his gaze returning to Dante. "I’m not here for a rift, my son. I’m here because I am dying. The cancer is eating my bones, and I refuse to rot in a villa surrounded by people who only want my jewelry."

He looked back at me, a cruel, knowing smile playing on his lips. "I’ve come to see if my legacy is in good hands. Or if I need to burn it all down to save it from being diluted by Vane blood."

He began to walk toward the elevators, the thump-click of his cane echoing like a heartbeat. He didn't ask for a room. He didn't ask for permission. He moved as if he still owned every brick in the city.

Dante watched him go, his hands balled into fists so tight his knuckles were white.

"He’s staying in the penthouse," Dante whispered, more to himself than to me. "I can't kill him, Julian. Not while he’s like this. The Capos... they still remember the 'Old Butcher.' If I kill my dying father, I lose the family's respect."

"I know," I said, reaching out to take his hand. His skin was ice-cold. "But he’s not here for a family reunion, Dante. He’s here to test us. He’s going to try to find the crack in our foundation."

"Let him try," Dante said, but for the first time, he didn't sound certain.

I looked at the elevator doors where the ghost of Sicily had disappeared. I had survived my own brothers. I had survived a car bombing and an FBI investigation. But as I felt the weight of the Moretti ring on my finger, I realized this was the ultimate audit.

Vincenzo Moretti didn't want the docks or the money. He wanted his son back. And to get him, he was going to have to go through me.