Chapter 4 - The Ledger of Sins
Trent’s face had gone from purple to a sickly, pasty gray. He couldn't breathe properly, his fingers clawing uselessly at the thick wrists of the man holding him against the wall.
"P-please," Trent wheezed, his arrogance completely evaporated, replaced by the pathetic, sniveling terror of a bully who had finally encountered someone stronger than him. "I don't know who you are... take whatever you want. The watch, the cash in the safe—just don't—"
"Quiet, boy," Salvatore Moretti commanded softly.
The enforcer holding Trent gave him a slight shake—just enough to rattle his teeth—before pinning him tighter.
Moretti walked slowly across the foyer, stepping carefully around the shards of the broken lamp, until he stood directly in front of me. He extended a manicured hand, offering to help me up. I hesitated for a fraction of a second, then placed my hand in his. His grip was dry, warm, and possessed of a quiet, controlled strength.
He pulled me to my feet with effortless grace.
"Are you injured, Miss Sullivan?" Moretti asked, his dark eyes scanning the thin line of blood on my forearm and the awkward angle at which I held my left side.
"Nothing that hasn't been hurting for the last three years," I replied honestly.
Moretti’s jaw tightened. A muscle twitched near his temple—the only sign of the lethal fury simmering beneath his impeccably tailored exterior. He turned his gaze back toward Trent, who was now trembling so violently his shoes were scraping against the baseboards.
"Mr. Trent Kessler," Moretti recited, as if reading from an execution order. "Senior partner at Kessler & Vance Real Estate. Currently handling the commercial rezoning for the West Forty-Ninth Street development project. A project financed, I might add, by a subsidiary holding company owned by my family."
Trent’s eyes bulged. "You... your holding company? But that’s—that’s Apex Capital—"
"Apex Capital is one of mine," Moretti confirmed calmly, walking over to the marble table and picking up Trent’s abandoned car keys. He turned them over in his palm. "Which means, Mr. Kessler, that every dollar of profit you expected to rake in from that deal exists entirely at my pleasure. Just as your freedom, your license to practice real estate, and your kneecaps exist at my pleasure."
"You can't do that!" Trent cried out, a hysterical edge creeping into his voice. "This is a free market! You can't just ruin a man over a domestic—over a private matter!"
Moretti sighed, a long, weary sound, and slid the keys into his own pocket.
"Domestic matter?" Moretti murmured, turning to face him fully. "Mr. Kessler, you made the catastrophic mistake of threatening a woman in a restaurant where I was trying to enjoy a dry-aged ribeye in peace. You interrupted my dinner with your pedestrian vulgarity. And worse..."
Moretti stepped closer, his voice dropping into a register that made even the enforcers take a half-step back.
"...you raised your hand in a city where I am the only authority that matters."
Moretti snapped his fingers once.
The enforcer holding Trent instantly released his grip. Trent collapsed onto the floor in a heap, gasping for air, clutching his bruised throat.
"Pick him up," Moretti ordered. "Take him down to the basement garage. Put him in the trunk of his own Audi. Drive him out to the Pine Barrens and let him contemplate the zoning laws of the New Jersey wilderness until sunrise. If he survives the night, he can walk back to Manhattan. Without his shoes, his wallet, or his phone."
"No! Please! Chloe, help me! Chloe, baby, tell them!" Trent screamed, thrashing wildly as two men hauled him off the floor like a sack of laundry, dragging him toward the elevator.
"Trent," I called out softly as they hauled him past me.
He stopped, his tear-streaked, terrified face turning toward mine, hope flaring in his eyes. "Chloe! Tell them to stop! We can fix this! We can go to counseling—"
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"The electric bill is paid," I said.
The elevator doors closed, cutting off his frantic shrieks as the car descended into the basement.
