Chapter 8 - The Final Reckoning
The final blow against Viktor Moretti did not come in the middle of the night with gunfire and explosions. It came with the quiet, devastating efficiency of a trap laid by two master strategists.
Three days after Helena's removal, Moretti—desperate, broke, and hunted by both the law and the syndicate—attempted to flee the country via a private airfield in New Jersey.
He believed he was meeting a black-market smuggler who would secure his passage to South America.
Instead, when Moretti stepped out of his armored sedan on the dark tarmac, he found the hangar lit up by blinding halogen floodlights.
Standing in the center of the hangar, surrounded by twenty armed Vance operatives, were Dominic and Nora.
Moretti, a cruel, aging man with a scarred face, reached frantically for his waist coat, but before his hand could touch his holster, a suppressed round struck the asphalt an inch from his boot.
Nora stepped out from the light, holding a sniper rifle rested against her shoulder with military perfection.
"Viktor Moretti," Nora’s voice echoed through the vast steel hangar. "You remember Donetsk. You remember the unit you sold out for three million euros."
Moretti gasped, his eyes widening in recognition as he looked at her face. "Rostova? You're... you're dead! I saw the report!"
"Reports can be bought, Viktor," Nora said coldly, walking toward him, her rifle locked onto his chest. "Just like you bought my unit's blood. Just like you bought Helena Vance's codes."
Moretti fell to his knees, raising his trembling hands into the air. He looked past her to Dominic, who walked up beside her, placing a heavy, supportive hand on her shoulder.
"Please, Vance!" Moretti begged, his voice cracking. "It was business! Just business! I'll give you everything! My offshore accounts, my territory—"
"You brought war to my home," Dominic said, his voice flat, devoid of any mercy. "You made my son cry."
Dominic didn't draw his gun. He looked at Nora.
"This is your ghost, Eleonora," Dominic said softly. "You decide how it ends."
Nora looked down at the man who had destroyed her past life, the man who had forced her to run into the shadows. Then she looked back at Dominic—at the man who had given her a reason to live, a baby to protect, and a family to love.
She slowly lowered her rifle.
"Killing you in a dark hangar is too easy, Viktor," Nora said quietly. "Interpol has been waiting two years for the man who bombed that airstrip."
She signaled to the shadows at the edge of the hangar. Four federal agents—working in coordination with the clean evidence package Nora had prepared—stepped into the light, clicking heavy steel handcuffs onto Moretti’s wrists.
As they dragged the screaming, cursing man away into the dark, Nora turned to Dominic.
The war was over. The ghosts were buried. The sun was finally rising over the horizon, casting a warm golden light through the hangar doors.
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Dominic reached out, wrapping his arms around her waist, lifting her slightly off her feet as he kissed her deeply under the morning sky.
"Let's go home," he whispered against her lips. "Our son is waiting."
