Marcus Lee pushed the door open like thunder and walked in with the kind of confidence that made the air itself recoil. He wore the arrogance of a man who'd never been told no; his tie was slightly loose, as if he'd been mid-gesture for some grand speech when he decided to barge in instead.
The concrete room was small, soundproofed to the point of bleakness — a steel table, two metal chairs, fluorescent light that bleached color from faces. Dempsey stood as Marcus entered, every muscle in his jaw taut like a wire. Vincent sat with his back to the window, palms flat on the table, the epitome of controlled danger.
Marcus didn't bother with pleasantries. "You're finally here," he said, and the words were sharpened for blood. He dropped a thick grey file on the table; the slap of it sounded like a judge's gavel. "We have enough to bring you down, Mr. Moretti."
Dempsey's eyes flicked to the file and then to Marcus. "Enough?" He smiled a precise, clinical smile. "Marcus, you've got passion. That's charming. Evidence? That's another thing."
Marcus's grin went brittle. "Don't play coy with me, Dempsey. Don't play coy with the dead." He slid the file across the table, opened it halfway, and pushed forward a glossy print—an image snapped from a grainy CCTV angle at the Moretti entrance. It showed Father Andrew moments before the attack, standing near the curb, head bent. A second photo showed the G-Wagon creeping into frame. The next two were of men in masks. Then, the killer silhouette. "We have witnesses who put your client on the phone with the priest two days before his death. We have a voicemail, timestamped. We have a message from the priest to a confidante about an argument with Mr. Moretti. And, Mr. Moretti—we have records of calls placed from your property that correspond with suspicious activity."
Vincent didn't flinch. He watched Marcus like a man watching a storm.
Dempsey reached forward, plucked the file, and scanned. He didn't have to hide his amusement. "The photos are grainy. The calls? Uncorroborated without context — anyone can dial a number. You've got noise, Marcus. You've got headlines waiting to be written. But what you don't have is chain-of-custody on your so-called electronic proofs, you don't have verified voice authentication on that voicemail, and you don't have motive beyond sensationalism." His tone was precise, surgical.
Marcus's eyes blazed. "We have motive. Mrs. Donovan's public disintegration, alleged infidelity, threats — all point to a man cornered and dangerous. You can tie him to threats, intimidation, to a pattern of violence. We'll present the jury with a picture they can read in a heartbeat."
Dempsey lowered his voice, and the room leaned in with him. "You'll present a story, Marcus. We will present evidence. Those are not the same thing. The problem you're glossing over is that the only ones who benefit from Father Andrew being silenced are people who profit from the chaos. Who benefits from Moretti's fall? Who has the network to stage such an efficient erasure? You really want to try to pin this on my client when there are forces in the city that have made careers out of manufacturing exactly the kind of evidence you just waved at me?"
Marcus stroked his chin slowly, a predator savoring his prey. "You think I don't know the darker corners, Dempsey? I know where skeletons hide. But I also know that the public needs somebody to blame right now. The feeds, the outrage—people want a face."
"Then give them a face who fits, and watch the facts die on the altar of convenience," Dempsey shot back. "We will subpoena these records. We will bring in every forensics expert to show the holes. You're building this on a rumor and a played-for-TV performance. Don't mistake theatrics for truth."
Marcus's jaw tightened. He leaned close so that his voice was almost private, but the heat in it made the whole room burn. "You think this is just theatrics?" He tapped a single file and it slid across the metal like a dare. "We have bank transfers. We have emails. We have an anonymous tip that led to surveillance footage. Your client's people are too sloppy for their own good."
Dempsey's eyes went cold. "Then produce them. Produce them in court. Don't parade them in a drab interrogation room and call it closure."
There followed a volley of legal sparring — Marcus brandishing the spectacle and arguing public safety and the pattern of Vincent's behavior; Dempsey dismantling timelines, exposing gaps in custody, demanding authenticated sources. Marcus accused, Dempsey parried. Marcus pushed with the weight of the state behind him; Dempsey countered with the sharp edges of procedure and the knowledge that rush-to-judgment convictions crack open under scrutiny.
As the argument wound toward exhaustion, Marcus shifted. The fight in his eyes darkened into something meaner, more personal. He stood, smoothed his jacket, and for a heartbeat the DA looked less like a public servant and more like a man who knows how to wield ruin as a scalpel.
"You know," Marcus said quietly, not looking at Vincent, "Tracy came to me. She told me things she didn't tell anyone else." He let the implication sit there, heavy and slow.
Vincent's face didn't change. Dempsey's hand twitched toward the file as if to snatch the word from the air.
Marcus continued, and now the voice in the room was made of steel. "She told me how her marriage went to pieces. She told me she sought counsel. She told me she confided in Father Andrew. She told me… she told me that before he was killed, Father Andrew asked her questions about your client's affairs." He paused, and then, like a man who has rehearsed the humiliation as a weapon, he leaned in: "She told me things she shouldn't have. She told me about nights I don't remember clearly, about yearning that made her reckless. She cried into my arms. I — I gave her comfort. I slept with her."
The room inhaled. Dempsey's fingers tightened on the blue edge of paper.
Vincent's eyes were ice. He didn't flinch. If there was a blow in Marcus's words, Vincent took it without flinching, as though it were another cold fact to be catalogued.
Marcus set his jaw. "She is telling a story that puts your client in the room when the priest was threatened. If the jury believes the narrative—if they believe the pressure you put on people—then Moretti Homes will crumble. I will see to it that every stone of that empire is examined."
Dempsey launched forward, furious, voice a low cavernous rumble. "So you'll leverage privacy and sexual entanglement to smear the man? You'll parade his private life because—what—public appetite demands it?" He jabbed a finger at Marcus. "You're threatening not just a man but an entire enterprise, based on testimony you yourself admit is tangled with personal involvement."
Marcus's face took on an ugly smile. "Call it what you want. I call it strategic justice. The law and moral outrage are often the same sword, Dempsey. I'm not here for theater; I'm here to be remembered for cleaning the rot out from under this city."
Dempsey didn't back down. "Then bring your proof. Bring your experts. I welcome the lights. I will let a courtroom parse this into fact and fiction."
Marcus straightened, buttoned his jacket, and made for the door. As he paused in the doorway, his voice dropped to that same dangerous whisper. "One more thing, Moretti — you can't bulldoze everything in your path and think a jury won't want to see the blueprints. Consider this the beginning."
He turned, but at the threshold he added, soft and personal, his eyes on Vincent with a flash of private malice: "I'll bring the suit. Criminal, civil—whatever will keep you in court until the money runs out. If there is anything you love more than your name, I'll expose it. I sleep in the dark, Mr. Moretti, but I wake with the law in my mouth—and we will make you regret the day you crossed me."
Then he was gone, leaving a silence that tasted like metal.
Dempsey stared at the door, then at Vincent. "A lawsuit will follow?" he said quietly, more a confirmation than a question.
Vincent reached up, massaged the bridge of his nose, and then looked at Dempsey with an expression that was part calculation, part exhaustion. "They'll throw everything they have," he said. "They'll try to bury me with paper and noise."
Dempsey set his jaw. "Then we answer with paper of our own. Subpoenas, countersuits, forensic audits. We'll strip every claim down to its bones. But Marcus doesn't bluff. He'll ruin reputation to win headlines. We have to be more thorough than thorough."
Outside, the press circus churned. A lawsuit — civil claims of conspiracy and defamation; criminal motions of obstruction and worse — were already being drafted in whispered conference rooms. Marcus's promise had lit the fuse; the court would be the arena.
Vincent sat back. For the first time since the knock at the door, his face betrayed something like emotion: not fear, not regret, but a hard, cold assessment. He had the look of a man who had measured what he stood to lose, and decided the price was worth the war.
When Dempsey rose to leave, he paused. "They'll come at you from every angle. Are you prepared to watch everything burn?"
Vincent's answer was a whisper that slid along the steel tabletop and settled like a verdict. "I'll make them pay for trying."
Outside the holding facility, the city circled like vultures, and somewhere a hand slid a black king across a table and watched the world begin to move.
When Vincent returned to the estate in the early hours of dawn, the house greeted him like a tomb. The grand lounge sat in eerie stillness—marble floors reflecting the soft flicker of the chandelier that never seemed to go out. The twin staircases rose on either side, curling upward like twin serpents until they met at the mezzanine. From up there, the portraits of dead Morettis watched him in silence, their oil-painted eyes judging, waiting.
Perhaps this was why his mother had left. Not for another man, not even for freedom—but out of fear.
The fear of the Moretti curse.
Six generations, six heirs.
Every one of them had fallen.
Some to madness, others to ruin—and a few to their own hands.
He paused at the foot of the stairs, his reflection caught in the darkened glass of the windows. Even in the stillness, the house breathed, creaked—alive with something old and malignant. Maybe the curse had finally found him. Maybe it wasn't content with simply breaking him—it wanted to erase him, to end the Moretti name with his death and take everything his blood had ever built.
His steps were heavy as he ascended. Each one echoed through the hall, like footsteps in a cathedral. He didn't notice her at first—the small figure standing at the top, wrapped in a pale robe, her hair loose and disheveled from the night.
Jennifer.
She hadn't gone to sleep. Not when the maids begged her to, not when Carlos promised news by morning. She had stayed there, waiting—counting the seconds until he came home. And when she saw him appear beneath the soft halo of chandelier light, something in her broke.
She ran to him.
The sound of her feet on marble was small, desperate. She collided into his chest, and he caught her before they both stumbled. For a heartbeat, neither spoke. Her body was trembling. She smelled of lavender and sleeplessness, her skin warm against the chill that had followed him home.
"They can't treat you like this," she whispered, voice fragile as paper.
He said nothing. He couldn't. His silence was a shield and a curse in itself. Since that night—since she'd opened up about Father Andrew—words had started to fail him. He didn't trust himself to speak, not when his anger, guilt, and longing all tangled in one place inside his chest.
Her head moved slightly, just enough for him to breathe in the soft scent of her hair. The tension between them hummed like static. And before she could stop herself—before reason could chain her heart—she looked up.
Her lips met his.
It wasn't a question, nor a mistake. It was the desperate act of someone who'd been holding her breath for too long. A soft, trembling kiss that carried both fear and defiance—like she was fighting the world with nothing but her heart.
For a fleeting moment, Vincent didn't move. He only felt. The warmth of her mouth, the faint taste of salt from her tears, the quiet confession in the way she leaned into him. Then his hands—cold and unsure—tightened around her waist.
And that was when the thought struck him like lightning:
Was his life unraveling because she had come too close?
Was she the blessing that would save him—or the final curse that would end him?
The kiss broke, but the silence that followed was louder than any storm.
Her eyes were moist and weak from desire. A rush.
He led her back into the wall, and lifted her up. Her legs locked around his waist, her hands thrown around his shoulder.
He kissed her now. He dreaded a touch. His hand found her left breast and squeezed gently. She moaned silently.
They kissed more. But before his last defense could snap. He pulled away from her.
"No" he whispered.
"What's wrong?" Her voice betrayed her. It carried her desires.
He pressed his face into hers. His nose rubbing the tip of hers. "Not like this." He whispered.
She nodded but didn't drop her arms from his neck. Instead they sank to the floor, to the soft rug. Her night robe flowing everywhere. And in that dim glow of morning, in the warm comfort of his arms, she dozed off.