Chapter 9 - THE CHOICE THAT SAVED US
The DNA test came back the next morning.
Michael was my son.
There was no mistake.
I sat alone in the laboratory when the doctor confirmed it.
Six years old.
My blood.
My child.
A child I had never known existed.
I remembered the years I'd spent building my empire.
The meetings.
The deals.
The enemies.
The women who came and went.
And somewhere in the middle of it all, a little boy had been growing up without me.
Grace found me sitting beside the window.
“You okay?”
“No.”
She sat beside me.
“I don't know how to be a father.”
“You already are one.”
“I missed six years.”
“You can't change that.”
“I should have been there.”
She touched my hand.
“You can be there now.”
I looked at her.
“I love you.”
She froze.
I had never said it.
Not to her.
Not to anyone.
“I love you,” I repeated.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I love you too.”
We kissed.
Not because the danger was over.
Because we needed one moment that belonged only to us.
Then Michael entered.
“Uncle Dominic?”
I turned.
He stared at me.
“Are you my dad?”
I knelt.
“Yes.”
He studied my face.
“Are you still my uncle?”
I smiled through tears.
“Yes.”
He ran into my arms.
I held him.
For the first time in my life, the Moretti name didn't feel like a weapon.
It felt like responsibility.
Then the doors exploded open.
Federal agents stormed inside.
Vanessa had surrendered.
Not willingly.
She had been arrested at the airport.
But before she was taken away, she gave Sarah Collins one final piece of information.
The Black Network wasn't finished.
There was one person above the Bellinis.
Someone who had controlled everything.
A name appeared in the file.
Dominic Moretti.
My own name.
I stared at the document.
“I don't understand.”
Sarah shook her head.
“Neither do we.”
The evidence suggested that my father had created the network.
But someone had been using my identity for years.
Bank accounts.
Orders.
Payments.
Murders.
Someone had built a second Dominic Moretti.
A shadow version of me.
Vanessa had been protecting it.
Grace looked at me.
“Who could do that?”
I knew.
Adrian.
My brother.
I rushed to the hospital.
Adrian was gone.
His room was empty.
The window was open.
On the bed was a note.
I'M SORRY.
I followed the coordinates.
An abandoned warehouse.
Adrian stood inside.
He looked exhausted.
“You.”
He nodded.
“I used your name.”
“Why?”
“To protect you.”
“You framed me.”
“No.”
He stepped closer.
“I took responsibility for crimes that would have destroyed you.”
“You built the network.”
“I dismantled it from inside.”
I didn't understand.
“Then why?”
“Because Dad would have killed you.”
I lowered my weapon.
“You could have told me.”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Every time I disappeared.”
He smiled sadly.
“I was the ghost keeping you alive.”
I stared at him.
Then I heard footsteps.
Vanessa appeared.
She had escaped custody.
She raised a gun.
Adrian stepped in front of me.
The shot hit him.
“Adrian!”
He fell.
Vanessa aimed again.
Grace fired first.
Vanessa dropped her weapon.
Federal agents rushed inside.
Adrian looked at me.
“Take care of Michael.”
“I will.”
“And Grace?”
I nodded.
“I will.”
He smiled.
“Then maybe all of this meant something.”
His eyes closed.
I thought he was dead.
But the paramedics arrived.
He survived.
Barely.
Vanessa was arrested again.
This time, there would be no escape.
The Black Network collapsed within months.
But the hardest battle wasn't against criminals.
It was against the man I had become.
I had inherited an empire built on fear.
I could either continue it.
May you like
Or destroy it.
I chose destruction.
