Chapter 4 - The Fortress in the Snow
By 3:00 a.m., the convoy was heading north toward the Green Mountains of Vermont.
The rain had turned into a thick, blinding snowstorm as they crossed the state line. White flakes swirled around the dark SUVs as they navigated the winding, isolated mountain roads.
Inside the second vehicle, Anna Miller sat tucked under a thick cashmere blanket, her wounds dressed by Dominic’s private physician. Sophie was fast asleep in her lap, her small head resting against Anna’s chest, her tiny fingers clutching the yellow rain tag from her backpack.
In the lead vehicle, Dominic sat staring out at the white wilderness.
He hadn't slept in twenty-four hours. His jaw was set like iron, his silver eyes cold and focused on the winding road ahead. Beside him, Graham held a satellite phone to his ear, finalizing the legal and tactical encirclement of the Bellini empire.
"Frank Bellini was picked up by state police twenty minutes ago near the airport," Graham reported softly. "His broken ribs prevented him from getting on his private jet. Federal prosecutors have executed search warrants on all twenty-two of his shell companies. The tape, combined with Caleb’s audit files and Vinnie’s cell phone records, has triggered a full RICO indictment. The Bellini family is finished, Dominic."
"I don't care about the Bellini family," Dominic said, his voice hollow. "I only care about Room 304."
At 4:45 a.m., the convoy turned off the main highway onto an unmarked gravel road lined with towering, snow-covered pine trees.
At the end of the road stood Saint Jude’s Sanatorium.
It was a gothic, stone castle built in the late 1800s, surrounded by a twelve-foot stone wall and iron gates. High above the courtyard, illuminated by floodlights, small barred windows looked out over the frozen forest. It was a place designed to hide unwanted people from the world—a place where money bought silence, darkness, and forgotten lives.
The SUV didn't wait for the iron gates to open.
Miles slammed the heavy armored front bumper of the lead vehicle directly into the gate’s central lock at forty miles an hour!
CRASH!
The heavy iron gates buckled, torn from their stone hinges, showering the snow with sparks and broken metal. The three SUVs roared into the courtyard, spinning out on the ice, coming to a halt directly before the grand stone steps of the main entrance.
Ten armed guards rushed out of the front doors, but the moment they saw twenty Moretti marksmen step out of the vehicles with military-grade tactical rifles, they dropped their weapons onto the snow and raised their hands in terror.
Dominic stepped out of the car.
He didn't speak to the guards. He didn't look at the director of the facility who ran out into the lobby in his pajamas, holding a clipboard and stammering about court orders.
Dominic walked past them all, his boots leaving dark footprints on the pristine white marble floor of the foyer.
He took the grand stone staircase three steps at a time. Up to the third floor. Down the long, quiet corridor lined with closed white doors.
Room 301.
Room 302.
Room 303.
Dominic stopped before Room 304.
The door was made of reinforced heavy oak, featuring a small, thick glass window at eye level, reinforced with wire mesh.
Dominic raised his hand to the brass door handle. His fingers were trembling so violently he could barely hold the metal.
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For six years, he had visited a marble headstone in a quiet cemetery in Brooklyn. He had laid red roses on cold granite every Sunday. He had prayed to a God he didn't believe in, begging for forgiveness because he thought he had failed to protect her.
He looked through the small glass window.
