Chapter 7 - The Thunder of Retribution
"Who... who are you?" Valentina whispered, her weak fingers reaching out instinctively, brushing against the fine fabric of his suit jacket.
"I am your real father," Sebastian promised, holding her hand with absolute fierceness. "And no one will ever hurt you again."
Heavy, hurried footsteps echoed down the stone staircase behind us.
Richard Vance stepped into the cellar threshold, flanked by two private bodyguards holding automatic pistols. His silver hair was disheveled, his expensive silk tie loosened at the collar, his eyes burning with frantic, desperate ambition.
"Get away from her, Moretti!" Vance screamed, waving his hand toward his guards. "She is my legal daughter! You are trespassing on private property! I will have the federal marshals tear your organization apart!"
Sebastian didn't jump. He didn't cover for safety.
He slowly turned around, stepping between the armed guards and the table where his dying daughter lay.
"Seventeen years ago," Sebastian said, his voice dropping into a register so quiet, so deadly, that even Vance's guards hesitated with their fingers on their triggers. "You set a fire in the basement of St. Jude's. You let three nurses inhale toxic smoke. You stole a newborn girl from an incubator because your own wife couldn't give you an heir to inherit your family fortune."
Vance’s face drained of every drop of color. "You have no proof—"
"I have the original DNA registry from the hospital vault," Marco spoke up, stepping out from the shadows with a thick red folder. "We pulled the archived blood samples from the night of the fire thirty minutes ago. The genetic match between Sebastian Moretti and Valentina Vance is ninety-nine point nine percent."
Vance swallowed hard, backing toward the stairs as he realized his entire life, his campaign, and his freedom were disintegrating in real time.
"She was nothing!" Vance shrieked, losing his composure completely. "She was the daughter of a criminal boss! I gave her a life! I gave her an education, a mansion, a name!"
"You locked her in a wine cellar to bleed to death so you could win an election," Sebastian replied flatly.
Sebastian moved with a speed that defied his size. Before Vance’s bodyguards could react, Marco’s team disarmed them from behind, slamming them against the stone walls.
Sebastian stepped up to Richard Vance, grabbing him by the throat with one hand, lifting the politician two inches off the stone floor.
"I am not going to kill you, Richard," Sebastian whispered into his ear as Vance clawed frantically at his arm for air. "Death is too easy. I am going to turn over every bank record, every medical document, and every recorded tape of your secret meetings to the United States Attorney’s Office. You will spend the rest of your natural life in a six-by-eight concrete cell, watching my family thrive while your name is erased from history."
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Sebastian dropped him onto the cold floor like a bag of trash.
"Marco," Sebastian commanded without looking back. "Hand him over to the federal agents waiting outside."
