Chapter 8 - The Ghost of Sofia
The interior of the Rostova manor was suffocatingly warm, filled with the medicinal smell of oxygen tanks, antiseptic, and aging wood.
Victor Rostova sat in his wheelchair beneath a massive oil painting of Sofia painted when she was eighteen years old. She was wearing a simple white dress, smiling down at the cold, sterile room with the same gentle clarity that Mateo carried in his tiny face.
Dante Vance stood near the grand stone fireplace, his hand never straying far from his weapon, while four guards took up defensive positions near the exit doors.
"Alejandro," Victor wheezed, his thin, blue-veined hands clutching the arms of his chair. "You look tired, my boy. The syndicate life takes its toll on a man who doesn't have the stomach for long-term strategy."
I did not offer a greeting. I stood in the center of the grand room, my eyes fixed on the dying old man who had spent five years orchestrating the destruction of my family.
"You hid my wife in a private facility while she died giving birth to my sons," I said, my voice dropping into a low, dangerous rumble. "You let me bury an empty coffin in Chicago."
Victor let out a dry, coughing laugh that rattled in his frail chest. "An empty coffin? No, no, Alejandro. Sofia is buried right where you left her. But her heart... her blood... lives in those four boys. Four perfect, identical boys. Do you know what that represents?"
"It represents four children who don't know their own father," I said coldly.
"It represents the future of the entire Midwest network!" Victor raised his thin voice, his dark eyes flashing with wild, manic intensity. "You are a brute, Alejandro! You rule through fear, through street enforcement, through short-term violence! You would have raised those boys to be soldiers! I am raising them to be kings! They will own the banks, the courts, the governorships! They will be untouchable!"
"They are four years old, Victor," Elena spoke up, stepping between me and the wheelchair, her hand holding the silver key high into the air. "They cry when the thunder is too loud. They like yellow rice and warm milk. They aren't your kings. They are Sofia’s babies!"
Victor’s eyes snapped to the silver key in Elena’s hand. His breathing became shallow and fast.
"Give me the key, Elena," Victor demanded, extending a trembling, spotted hand. "Sofia stole the original trust ledgers from my private safe before she went into the hospital. Give me the key, and I will let you live out your days in comfort on my estate in Maine."
Elena looked at the key, then looked up at the oil painting of Sofia hanging above the fireplace.
"Sofia didn't steal those ledgers to protect her trust, Victor," Elena said softly. "She stole them because she found out what you did to her mother thirty years ago."
The room went dead silent.
Even Dante Vance shifted his weight slightly, looking from Victor to Elena with a sudden flicker of professional curiosity.
"Shut her up, Dante," Victor rasped, his face turning an unhealthy shade of purple. "Shoot her! Shoot them both!"
Dante did not draw his weapon. He looked at Elena, his brow furrowing. "What mother?"
"Victor told Sofia her mother died of pneumonia in Paris when Sofia was two years old," Elena said, her voice growing stronger with every word. "In reality, Victor had her committed to an asylum in Quebec because she threatened to go to the federal authorities with his financial ledgers. Sofia found the transfer documents three weeks before she died."
Elena turned to me, her eyes filled with a profound, terrible sorrow. "That’s why Sofia hid the boys, Alejandro! She realized her father was a monster who destroyed every woman and child who stood between him and his empire! She knew that if she stayed with him, he would turn her sons into the same kind of heartless machines!"
"DANTE!" Victor shrieked, his hands clawing at his cashmere blanket. "EXECUTE THEM NOW! THAT IS AN ORDER!"
Dante Vance looked at the dying old man in the wheelchair. Then he looked at me.
"How much is in the European trust, Alejandro?" Dante asked smoothly, his tone dropping back into the cold, calculating cadence of a private contractor.
"Fifty million euros," I replied, without taking my eyes off Victor. "Secured by the key Elena is holding."
"Dante!" Victor screamed, his oxygen machine beeping frantically as his heart rate spiked. "I paid you ten million to retrieve those children!"
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"You paid me ten million to retrieve assets from a dead trust, Victor," Dante said, stepping away from the fireplace and folding his arms. "You didn't tell me I was helping a dying old man steal his grandchildren from the head of the Moretti family. My firm doesn't do long-term blood feuds with Chicago bosses for ten million."
Dante looked at me and offered a crisp, professional nod. "The perimeter guards have been stood down, Mr. Moretti. The estate is yours."
