Chapter 5 - The Snake in the Tower
Luca sat in his top-floor corner office at Moretti Global tower, the high-resolution copy of the forged medical report resting on his glass desk like a unexploded bomb.
Outside his floor-to-ceiling windows, the Chicago skyline stretched into the distance, but his world had narrowed to the single page in front of him.
The door to his office opened, and Marcus Vance walked in. Marcus was forty-two, sleek, handsome, wearing an impeccably tailored Italian suit. He carried a tablet in one hand and a leather folder in the other.
"Luca," Marcus said smoothly, setting the folder down. "The board is finalized for the Shaw logistics acquisition. We just need your signature on the final equity transfer. Once this closes, our stock value jumps twenty percent."
Luca didn't move. He didn't look at the folder. He kept his eyes fixed on the forged document on his desk.
"Where were you on the night of November 14th, five years ago, Marcus?" Luca asked, his voice chillingly neutral.
Marcus paused, his polished smile faltering for a microsecond before smoothing out. "Five years ago? Luca, I barely remember what I had for breakfast yesterday. Why?"
Luca slowly lifted his head. His eyes were devoid of all warmth, holding a dark, predatory stillness that made Marcus instinctively take a half-step back.
"This is a medical file," Luca said softly, sliding the paper across the polished glass. "It claims Nia had a permanent reproductive disability. It was anonymously delivered to my personal email two weeks before I asked her for a divorce."
Marcus glanced down at the paper. His jaw twitched once—so fast a lesser man would have missed it. "Luca... why are you digging up old garbage from your ex-wife? You have a major deal to sign, and Evelyn is waiting downstairs for lunch—"
"I had my head of cyber-security trace the digital routing tag on this document last night," Luca interrupted, his voice dropping into a terrifying baritone rumble. "It didn't come from a hospital, Marcus. It was routed through an encrypted proxy server registered to an offshore shell company in the Cayman Islands."
Luca stood up slowly, his tall frame blocking out the afternoon light behind him.
"A shell company," Luca continued, taking a step toward his COO, "that holds forty percent of your personal stock portfolio."
Marcus’s face lost every drop of color. He swallowed hard, his posture stiffening as he realized he had been caught in a corner with no exit.
"Luca... listen to me," Marcus stammered, stepping back toward the door. "You were distracted! You were obsessed with having a baby while the company was facing a hostile takeover from the European consortium! You were losing your edge! If you had stayed married to Nia—a woman with no political connections, no family wealth—we would have lost the company!"
"You lied to me," Luca whispered, the shock in his voice turning into a murderous fury. "You manufactured a fake medical report to make me believe my wife was broken."
"I saved this company!" Marcus yelled back, his composure shattering into desperate anger. "The Shaw family wouldn't give us the fifty-million-dollar credit line unless you married Evelyn! I did what had to be done to build this empire!"
"You destroyed my family!" Luca roared, his fist slamming down onto the glass desk with enough force to send a fracture line rippling through the reinforced surface.
He lunged across the desk, grabbing Marcus by his expensive silk tie, dragging the man toward his face until their noses were inches apart.
"You made me throw away the woman I loved!" Luca snarled, his chest heaving, his dark eyes burning with pure, violent hatred. "You made me miss seven years of my children's lives!"
"Luca... please!" Marcus choked out, clutching at Luca's iron grip.
"Get out," Luca growled, tossing Marcus away like a piece of filthy laundry. Marcus hit the leather sofa, gasping for air. "You are stripped of your position as COO. Your stock options are frozen. My legal team will file criminal fraud charges against you before the market opens tomorrow."
"You can't do this!" Marcus rasped, straightening his tie with shaking hands, his eyes wild with desperation. "The Shaw family will pull out of the merger! Your stock will crash! You'll destroy Moretti Global!"
May you like
Luca walked to his window, looking down at the city streets where Nia and his children lived.
"I don't give a damn about Moretti Global," Luca said quietly, without looking back. "If I have to burn this entire tower to the ground to earn my family back... I'll light the fire myself."
