Chapter 6 - The Iron Duke of the Loop
The address was not listed in any public directory. It was a gated limestone fortress tucked away behind the high-end commercial district of the Loop, protected by ten-foot stone walls, private security checkpoints, and an ominous brass plaque that simply read: Moretti Holdings.
It was the domain of Alessandro Moretti—the man who controlled the Chicago shipping docks, half the commercial real estate downtown, and enough municipal judges to make a federal indictment look like a parking ticket.
And more importantly for our purposes: Alessandro Moretti was Nathan Cole’s primary business rival in a multi-billion-dollar merger negotiation for the North American freight logistics corridors—a merger that Vanessa Hale had been aggressively pushing Nathan to sign over to a shell corporation controlled by her own family trust.
If Vanessa succeeded in incapacitating Nathan and seizing control of Cole Industries, Moretti Holdings stood to lose forty percent of its shipping contracts across the Great Lakes.
Which meant Alessandro Moretti had a very personal, very powerful incentive to listen to a maid carrying a lab printout.
Getting an audience with Alessandro Moretti without an appointment was statistically impossible. People spent months trying to secure a three-minute meeting in his waiting room.
I didn't have months. I had twelve days until the wedding.
So I didn't try to make an appointment. I parked my dented Honda directly across the street from the wrought-iron gates of Moretti Holdings at 7:30 a.m., waited for a black armored sedan to pull up to the security scanner, and walked straight up behind it as the heavy iron gates swung open.
The security guard inside the booth stepped out instantly, his hand resting on his holster, his face a mask of cold professional menace.
“Hold it right there, miss. Private property. Turn around and back out before I have the vehicle towed.”
I didn't flinch. I kept my hands visible, pulled the Ziploc bag containing the lab printout and the pharmaceutical breakdown from my coat pocket, and held it out.
“Tell Mr. Moretti that the maid from the Cole mansion is here to tell him why his multi-billion-dollar logistics merger is about to be signed over to a dead man,” I said clearly, my voice not shaking even once.
The guard stared at me as if I had sprouted a second head. “You’ve lost your mind. Get away from the gate.”
“Tell him about Calyx-9,” I added, raising my voice slightly. “Tell him Vanessa Hale is assassinating his primary business rival from the inside out, and if he doesn't give me five minutes of his time, there won't be a CEO left alive to sign his shipping contracts next Tuesday.”
The guard’s radio crackled before he could reply.
May you like
A deep, gravelly voice echoed from the small speaker on his shoulder: “Let her in.”
The guard froze, stared at me with a sudden, entirely new level of wariness, and gestured toward the main glass doors of the tower. “Third floor. Executive suite. Don't touch anything.”
