Chapter 5 - The Confrontation in Greenwich
While Elena was being prepared for her six-hour open-heart surgery, I left Mia under the watchful, protective care of my head housekeeper, Mrs. Gable, in the hospital suite.
I took my heavy black sedan and drove forty-five minutes north through the darkening autumn light toward Greenwich, Connecticut.
The Moretti family estate sat behind ten-foot wrought-iron gates on a quiet, tree-lined avenue overlooking Long Island Sound. The grand stone mansion, built by my grandfather in 1952, stood illuminated by bright landscape lighting—a place of immense wealth, pristine beauty, and total moral bankruptcy.
I pushed open the heavy mahogany front doors without knocking.
The grand entryway smelled of fresh lilies, beeswax, and expensive furniture polish. Sitting in a high-backed silk armchair in the drawing room, sipping tea from a delicate porcelain cup, was my mother, Victoria Moretti.
She was sixty-eight years old, impeccably dressed in a grey Chanel suit, her silver hair styled into a perfect, frozen bun.
She looked up as I stepped into the room, her expression instantly turning cold and disappointed.
"Dominic," she said, setting her teacup down on a silver saucer with a tiny, sharp clink. "You checked yourself out of Mount Sinai against medical advice. The family doctor called me twice today. You are behaving like a reckless child."
I did not take off my coat. I walked to the center of the Persian rug, standing five feet from her chair.
"Seven years ago," I said, my voice dangerously low, "you paid off private investigators in Boston. You threatened Elena Vance's dying father. And you offered her half a million dollars to kill my child."
Victoria’s hands froze over her tea tray for a fraction of a second. Her face did not register surprise, guilt, or fear. It settled into a masked wall of aristocratic disgust.
"So," she said smoothly, leaning back against her silk armchair. "The girl finally found you. I wondered how long it would take her to run out of money and come looking for a payout."
"She didn't find me," I said, stepping closer, my shadows falling over her face. "Her daughter saved my life on Fifty-Third Street three days ago while I was dying on the sidewalk. A six-year-old girl with my eyes called an ambulance while everyone else walked past."
Victoria blinked, a hairline crack appearing in her cold composure. "What?"
"Mia," I whispered, leaning down until my face was inches from hers. "Her name is Mia. She is my daughter. Your granddaughter. And right now, her mother is lying in Operating Room Four at Mount Sinai having her chest cut open because you spent seven years driving them into starvation."
Victoria stood up slowly, smoothing the skirt of her Chanel suit. "Dominic, listen to me. You were young. You were reckless. That girl was nobody. A waitress’s daughter with no family background, no wealth—"
"Shut up," I commanded.
Victoria gasped, her face flushing crimson. "How dare you speak to me—"
"I said shut up!" I roared, the sound echoing off the high plaster ceilings of the drawing room like a thunderclap.
I pulled a thick folder from my coat pocket and threw it onto the marble coffee table between us.
"This is a legal notice of your immediate removal from the Board of Directors of the Moretti Group," I said coldly. "As majority shareholder, I have exercised my executive right under Section 4 of my father's living trust to strip you of your voting rights, your corporate stipend, and your access to the family foundations."
Victoria stared at the papers on the table, her breath coming in sharp, terrified hitches. "You... you can't do this! I am your mother!"
"You aren't my mother," I said, turning my back on her as I walked toward the front doors. "You are just a bitter old woman sitting alone in a very expensive house."
"Dominic!" she shrieked behind me, her voice shrill with panic as she ran to the drawing room doorway. "Dominic, come back here!"
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"If you ever come near Elena," I said without looking back, my hand resting on the brass door handle, "if you ever attempt to contact Mia, or if you ever step foot on my property in Manhattan again... I will release the complete financial records of your private charitable foundation to the IRS. You will spend the rest of your life in a federal prison."
I pulled the heavy mahogany door open, stepping out into the cold night air, leaving her screaming into the empty, silent grand hall.
