Miles Moretti Novels & Stories

Marco Moretti stepped into the gloom. His silk tie was yanked loose, his sleeves rolled up like he was ready to get his hands dirty. He didn't touch the lights. He dragged a chair across the floor—the screech of wood on wood sounding like a dying animal—and sat backward, arms draped over the backrest. He pulled a compact video camera from his pocket and set it on the yellowed tablecloth. Click. A tiny red light began to pulse in the dark. A digital heartbeat.

# CHAPTER THREE Moretti has been talking for eleven minutes. I know because I've been counting. Watching him work the table the way men like him always do — loud, performative, filling the room so nobody else can breathe in it. He has soft hands. I noticed that when he shook mine. The hands of a man who hasn't built anything himself in a very long time. "Your new acquisition in the south quarter," Moretti is saying to Alfonso, cutting into his steak like he owns the knife. "I have to be honest with you, it concerns me. The infrastructure alone"

Enzo vanished into the smoke, his yacht groaning as it listed. We clambered onto the pier, gasping, guns trained on the approaching shadows. Sal Moretti emerged from the water like a demon, unflinching, his enforcers forming a perimeter. At his side: Rocco Bianchi, the Moretti family’s infamous hammer. Tall, scarred, with a shaved head and eyes like chipped obsidian, Rocco was a legend in underworld whispers—ex-military, sadistic, the man who broke bones for fun and left no witnesses. Tattoos of saints and sinners coiled up his arms, visible through his torn shirt. He’d risen from Chicago’s streets, Sal’s adopted brother in blood, enforcer of the Moretti code.

Sean opened the door for me, and I walked inside. Don Moretti was already sitting at a large round table in the back corner. He was an old man with white hair and a very expensive blue suit. He was cutting a piece of steak, but when he saw me walk in, he set his knife down and smiled a fake, political smile. "Christopher," Moretti said, spreading his hands wide. "Look at you. The papers in the city said you were dead, but here you are, looking as sharp as ever." "You shouldn't believe everything you read in the papers, Moretti," I said, sitting down in the leather chair across from him. Sean stood right behind me, his hands crossed in front of his belt, close to his weapon.

I entered the room, Moretti was already seated with one of his men next to him. Moretti was a middle-aged short stout man with a balding head and when he smiled, he had replaced three of his teeth with faux gold teeth. He wore a miserable excuse of a suit that the middle button was struggling to hold in even though it was fighting a war against his bulging stomach. I could smell the greed rolling off his body like a cologne, bastard, it was just like him to try and stab me in the back.

She watched as his expression shifted from irritation to something darker. “Where?” he asked, voice clipped. A pause. “Understood.” He hung up and turned to her. “We found Moretti.” Her breath caught. “Where?” His jaw tightened. “Not where. Who.” Isabella’s pulse pounded. “What do you mean?” Alexander’s blue eyes burned into hers. “Elias Moretti isn’t just some arms dealer, Isabella.” Her throat tightened. Jason had said Moretti played in the big leagues. That he was powerful. But she hadn’t realized—

Marco started to say something, but seeing Dante's state, he shut his mouth. In the Chicago underworld, Dante Moretti was a legend. Cold, ruthless, always in control. No one had ever seen him look weak. No one had ever seen him shed a tear. But now, the legend was on his knees beside a filthy puddle, as helpless as a child who had lost his mother. Finally, they found it. Alessia’s SIM card. Dante clutched it like a holy relic, thinking maybe, just maybe, it held a final message she wanted him to see.

The photos. The recording. The report. Soon, all of it would reach Adrian. But not yet. Not here. Not while I was still close enough to be found. My assistant turned slightly in the front seat. “Ms. Vale, your flight boards in an hour. Should I shut down the old number?” I looked out at the fading line of New York and placed my hand over my stomach. “Yes,” I said. “Turn it off.” Scarlett Moretti died at her wedding. Stephanie Vale took her unborn child and her future with her.

Like it just happened yesterday. They made me who I am now, and I don’t have any regret for killing Kevin, Alex, and Gin and there are two more. It’s Alvin Ross who is now Ervin Ross and no matter how he hides, who he is...is who he is. Yeah right! I remember that quotation from Mother Conqueror. It says…

Her first reaction would’ve been to pull back and reassess the situation—but from the slightly questioning look he had on she could tell he wasn’t sure she recognized him, and given that she hadn’t gotten a good enough look at him, though even if she had it would’ve been a stretch to connect him with the stranger she’d bumped into even without the pair of glasses he now sported, it was a fair enough assumption—but the commanding baritone that rumbled out of him was not one you could easily forget. He’d make a fine drill sergeant if he ever so much as put his mind to it. “It’s nice to meet you too,” she responded, letting her sentence trail off. “Moretti. Gianni Moretti.” Supplied so naturall