CHAPTER 6 – THE GHOST WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD
CHAPTER 6 – THE GHOST WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD
The man known to the world as Gabriel Moretti had attended his own funeral eighteen years earlier.
Not in person.
Through binoculars.
He watched politicians cry.
Priests pray.
Enemies celebrate.
The coffin buried beneath the rain contained nothing but stones.
Since that day, he had disappeared.
Officially.
Unofficially...
He became the invisible hand behind half the violence in Chicago.
Including the bullet that shattered Dante's spine.
Not to kill him.
To weaken him.
To force the Vale family into civil war.
Everything had gone according to plan.
Until one little girl walked into a birthday dinner.
Gabriel smiled bitterly.
"Children."
"They always ruin perfect calculations."
Back at the estate...
Emily wandered into the mansion's neglected garden.
She found an old greenhouse.
Most of the flowers had withered years ago.
Only one white rose still bloomed.
Dante watched from the stone path.
"My mother planted those."
Emily looked at him.
"Where is she?"
"She died."
The child nodded sadly.
"My daddy died too."
For a long moment...
Neither of them spoke.
Then Emily reached out and took Dante's hand.
It was the first time anyone had done so without fear.
"You miss them."
He swallowed.
"Every day."
"My teacher says people don't disappear."
"They stay where love remembers them."
Dante closed his eyes.
His mother had once told him almost the same thing.
Memories he had buried beneath years of violence resurfaced all at once.
The man called the Winter King suddenly remembered he had once been simply...
A son.
That afternoon...
Silas rushed into the garden.
"We found something."
Dante immediately became alert.
"What?"
"The fingerprints from the note left in Claire's apartment."
"They don't belong to Vincent's people."
Silas handed over a file.
Dante studied the results.
His face changed.
Impossible.
He looked again.
The fingerprints matched a man officially declared dead nearly two decades earlier.
Gabriel Moretti.
One of the original founders of the organization.
The man who had supposedly died before Dante inherited power.
Silas whispered,
"If he's alive..."
Dante finished the sentence.
"...then everything we've believed has been a lie."
Before they could say another word...
The estate alarms exploded.
Red lights flashed across every hallway.
Security operators shouted through radios.
"Multiple vehicles approaching!"
"North gate breached!"
"East perimeter under attack!"
Silas drew his pistol instantly.
Snipers rushed into position.
Armored gates began closing.
Emily looked frightened.
Claire grabbed her tightly.
Dante's voice remained perfectly calm.
"Get them to the panic room."
Silas nodded.
"What about you?"
Dante rolled toward the front entrance instead.
"If Gabriel came personally..."
"He came to see whether I'm still broken."
The massive front doors opened.
Outside...
Twelve armored SUVs lined the driveway.
One elderly man stepped out wearing a charcoal overcoat.
Silver hair.
Black gloves.
Elegant smile.
He carried no visible weapon.
He looked more like a university professor than the architect of decades of bloodshed.
Gabriel Moretti stopped twenty feet away.
He applauded slowly.
"Happy belated birthday, Dante."
The estate fell silent.
Even the wind seemed to stop.
Dante stared at the ghost from his childhood.
"You should be dead."
Gabriel chuckled.
"I've heard that for eighteen years."
He glanced toward the mansion.
"I also heard you found yourself a new family."
Dante's eyes turned to ice.
"Leave."
Gabriel smiled wider.
"I haven't even given Emily her birthday present."
The instant he spoke the little girl's name...
Every sniper on the estate cocked their rifles.
Safety clicks echoed across the grounds.
Dante's voice dropped to a level that terrified even his own men.
"You already made one mistake."
Gabriel tilted his head.
"And what's that?"
Dante answered without blinking.
"You reminded me that I still have something worth protecting."
A slow smile crossed Gabriel's face.
"No, Dante."
"I reminded you..."
"...that everything worth protecting can be taken."
The old man turned, entered his limousine, and disappeared through the shattered front gates.
He had not fired a single shot.
He hadn't needed to.
His message was clear.
The next move would not be against Dante's empire.
It would be against his heart.
And for the first time since becoming the most feared man in Chicago...
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Dante Vale realized he wasn't fighting for power anymore.
He was fighting for the lives of the only two innocent people who had ever looked at him without fear.
