Chapter 4 - THE COUSIN’S BETRAYAL AND THE HANGAR DOORS
The name Dante echoed inside the armored SUV, drowning out even the sound of the rain lashing against the windshield.
Dante Moretti.
Luca’s blood-related cousin, a man who had spent the last five years exiled to the outer rings of the family shipping syndicates in Detroit after trying to embezzle funds from the import docks.
“Dante?” Luca repeated, his voice dropping into a dangerous, glacial register. “Dante is supposed to be three hundred miles away in Michigan. His parole officer confirmed his location this morning.”
“He broke parole two weeks ago, Boss,” Marco’s voice crackled through the dashboard speaker, cut through with static from the worsening storm. “Our surveillance feeds at the Racine perimeter just caught his private vehicle—a stolen black Lincoln Navigator—blocking the main hangar doors. He’s working with Vanessa. They planned the corporate buyout and the custody extraction together.”
A sickening wave of realization washed over me.
It wasn't just a bitter fiancée acting out of spite. It was a calculated corporate coup engineered by a disgruntled family member who wanted to tear the Moretti empire apart from the inside out.
“Are they on the runway?” Luca demanded, gripping the steering wheel so hard the leather creaked.
“Not yet,” Marco replied urgently. “Old Salvatore locked himself inside the primary aviation tower. He refused to authorize the flight plan without your direct biometric override code. But Dante and Vanessa are at the hangar service entrance right now, trying to break the electronic keypad with a portable hydraulic cutter.”
Luca slammed his foot down on the accelerator. The heavy SUV roared, surging past a line of semi-trucks with a deafening splash of water.
“Hold the perimeter, Marco! Do not engage until I get there! If Dante hurts a hair on my daughter's head, I want him alive so I can dismantle him piece by piece.”
“Copy that, Boss. We’re moving into position now.”
The call disconnected with a sharp click.
In the passenger seat, my hands were trembling as I gripped the armrest. I looked over at Luca. In the dim green glow of the dashboard instruments, his face looked like carved stone—implacable, fearless, and utterly lethal.
“Mr. Moretti,” I said quietly. “If Dante is involved, this isn't just about money or a custody dispute anymore. He’s trying to take over your seat on the syndicate board.”
“He’s trying to destroy everything my father built,” Luca corrected, his voice dangerously low. “And he used my daughter as a pawn to do it. That’s a mistake he won't survive.”
We drove the remaining fifteen miles in dead silence, the storm raging outside as if mirroring the violence building inside Luca's mind.
As we crested the final ridge of the coastal highway, the private airstrip came into view below—a long, dark ribbon of asphalt cutting through the windswept marshlands of the Wisconsin shore.
Parked directly across the tarmac entrance of Hangar 4 was a black Lincoln Navigator, its hazard lights blinking rhythmically against the sheets of rain.
“There,” I pointed through the rain-streaked windshield.
Luca didn't slow down. He steered the SUV directly toward the hangar, cutting his headlights at the last second to plunge us into total darkness as we approached across the gravel service road.
We rolled to a stop fifty yards behind Dante's vehicle, shielded by a row of empty fuel tankers.
Through the pouring rain, I could see three figures standing near the side service door of the massive metal hangar.
Vanessa Blake was wearing her expensive red evening gown under a black waterproof utility jacket, her heels sinking into the mud. Beside her stood Dante Moretti—a tall, heavyset man with slicked-back dark hair and a permanent sneer carved across his thick lips.
And between them, crying softly and clutching a small stuffed rabbit to her chest, was nine-year-old Sophie.
My breath caught in my throat.
Sophie looked terrified, her little blue coat soaked through with rain, her dark hair plastered against her forehead.
“Daddy...” I heard her small voice carry faintly across the wet wind, though her father couldn't hear her yet from our distance.
Dante was holding a heavy hydraulic cutting tool, forcing the teeth of the machine against the electronic lock of the service door with a grinding screech of metal.
“Hurry up, Dante!” Vanessa snapped, her voice sharp and frantic as she glanced back toward the empty highway. “Luca could be here any minute! The old man in the tower won't hold out forever!”
Dante laughed, a harsh, grating sound that echoed over the wind.
“Relax, Vanessa,” Dante sneered, pausing to wipe rain from his forehead with the back of a thick, tattooed forearm. “The old fool in the tower doesn't have a weapon, and Luca is probably halfway to the Milwaukee lighthouse by now reading my little poetry note.”
Suddenly, the side service door of the hangar gave way with a loud crack, the electronic locking mechanism shearing off in a shower of blue sparks.
Vanessa smiled triumphantly.
“Open it!” she ordered.
Dante kicked the heavy metal door inward. It swung open, revealing the dark, cavernous interior of the hangar where a twin-engine private jet sat gleaming under emergency backup lights.
And standing right at the top of the metal boarding stairs, holding a heavy iron wrench like a club, was old Salvatore.
“You’re not taking that plane anywhere, you ungrateful little parasites,” the seventy-year-old aviation veteran roared into the dark interior.
Dante chuckled darkly, pulling a heavy steel revolver from the waistband of his trousers.
“Move aside, old man,” Dante said, stepping over the threshold with the gun raised. “Unless you want to spend your retirement years six feet under.”
From the passenger seat of our SUV, Luca unbuckled his seatbelt with a sharp, metallic click.
He reached into the glove compartment, pulled out a matte-black firearm, and checked the slide with practiced, lethal precision.
“Stay in the car, Hannah,” Luca said, his voice entirely devoid of emotion.
“No,” I said, reaching for the door handle.
Luca turned his head sharply, his dark eyes flashing with warning. “Hannah, I mean it. This is about to get violent.”
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“I’m not staying in the car while a little girl is in danger,” I answered, pushing my door open against the force of the wind and stepping out into the freezing rain.
Before Luca could argue, I slammed my door shut and followed him across the tarmac, slipping through the shadows of the fuel tankers toward the open hangar doors.
