Chapter 4 - The Reckoning
By midnight, the top floor of the Moretti Plaza penthouse was locked down.
A team of top private physicians had already attended to Clara, administering fluids and vitamins, assuring Dominic that she was merely suffering from exhaustion and severe malnutrition. She was now resting comfortably in the master suite, wrapped in silk sheets, while Lily slept soundly in the adjoining guest bedroom, surrounded by brand-new stuffed animals brought by the staff.
Down in the private study, the atmosphere was deadly.
Arthur Pendelton, a sixty-year-old man in an expensive suit, stood trembling near the glass windows. Marco stood by the locked doors, his arms crossed over his chest.
Dominic sat behind his massive mahogany desk, the shoebox of unopened letters sitting directly in front of him.
"I... I was following your father's explicit orders, Dominic!" Arthur pleaded, his voice high-pitched and desperate. "Don Vincenzo made me promise! He said a girl from the archives would make you weak! He said the Moretti family couldn't afford a compassionate chairman!"
"My father is dead, Arthur," Dominic said coldly, sliding one of the letters across the desk. "And you kept my daughter from me for six years."
"I was protecting the empire!" Arthur cried. "If the other families knew you had a vulnerable child out there, they would have used her against you!"
Dominic stood up slowly. His massive frame cast a long, dark shadow across the room. He walked around the desk until he stood inches from the trembling old man.
"You didn't protect my empire, Arthur. You stole six years of my daughter's laughter from me," Dominic said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "You are stripped of your pension, your stock options, and your title. You have one hour to sign over your shares to a trust fund in Lily Carter's name, or Marco will ensure you spend the rest of your days in a federal penitentiary for the embezzlement records I found in your office tonight."
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Arthur's face went gray. Without a word, he grabbed the pen on the desk and signed the transfer documents with shaking hands.
"Get out of my sight," Dominic growled.
