Chapter 12:
I kept going. “Rule number three of the Moretti code–written by Don Moretti himself. Blood doesn’t bend to tradition. Tradition bends to blood. You wrote it. You followed it. Now honor it
I could see something flicker in their eyes–shock, maybe. Or respect. I didn’t give them time to recover
“I’m not here to ask permission,” I said, quieter. Tm here to claim what’s mine. You can either stand with me…or step the fuck aside
Luca smirked. My father lit his cigar, proud, like he’d been waiting years to see it. One by one, the council nodded
And just like that…!
The heiress was official.
On paper. Protected. Whispered about behind closed doors. Not a pet. Not a mistress. Not a fucking accessory.
I was Moretti. And now the world knew it.
The next weeks were brutal. My momings started before dawn, training with ex–special forces brought in by my brother. Guns. Knives. Situational drills. I bled. I bruised. I kept going. But that was the easy part.!!
What broke me and rebuilt me were the aftemoons &
Luca sat me down every day with thick stacks of files, maps, and intel reports. He taught me how to trace power like a wire–who owed who, how money flowed through offshore accounts, how to make a man disappear with a phone calls
Our father taught me the language of loyalty. How to read a room. How to make someone fear you without ever raising your voice. How favors were mom valuable than bullets.8.
And then… there were the dossiers
Zeus’s world laid out in front of me, piece by piece. Lambert Holdings. The shadow companies. His allies, his rivals, his loose ends. Who hated him quietly. Who wanted him dead but couldn’t afford the warl
I read every word.
I memorized his weaknesses. Not just business. Personal &
I remembered the way he drank when he was nervous. How he clenched his jaw when he lied. The way his eyes darkened before he hit someone. I wrote it all down, not because I missed him–but because I would never let a man like him catch me blind again.
One night, Luca asked me, “Do you want him dead?
I didn’t even hesitate. “No”
He raised a brow.D
I smiled, thin and cold. “I don’t want to kill him. I want him to wish I did.
There was a different kind of silence after that. Not pity. Not doubt. It was respect
And maybe, just maybe a little fear.
THE FIRST business I bought was a shipping company Zeus had used for years–smuggling designer imports through Eastem ports, laundering cash through “luxury goods.” On the surface, it looked clean. Profitable, too. I let him keep thinking that
The deal was done through a woman named Clara Mancini. She didn’t exist. Not really. Just a name stitched together with false passports, shell corporations, and some deep web finesse my brother’s team put together for me. Clara was elegant, mysterious, rich, and untouchable. Every inch of her a mask I wore with precision.!!
By the end of that first year, Clara had quietly swallowed six companies linked to Zeus’s empire. Three in finance. Two in freight. One in digital security. All essential. All now mine.
He didn’t even notice.!!!
He was too busy playing house.
I saw the photos. I didn’t go looking for them, but they found me anyway–one of Father’s informants dumped a file on my desk. Zoraya in white silk, lounging in the courtyard of their new mansion. Ten maids. Twenty guards. A toddler in her lap with Zeus’s jet–black hair and her delicate fake smile.
They called him Zane Lambert. Two years old. Happy Healthy Loved.
My child hadn’t even made it past a heartbeat?!
I didn’t cry when I saw the pictures. I stared at them for hours, though. Memorizing them like evidence. Like proof that he’d moved on, that
he could. That he did.
Every inch of that palace they built together felt like a grave I hadn’t buried yet. But I would
I kept the photos. Not for sentiment. For fuel.
“Bum it down slow, Luca had said. “So he feels every goddamn layer fall.”
And I did.
I started with his allies. The quiet ones. The greedy ones. Men who smiled for the press but bit behind closed doors. The kind of men who would sell out their own blood if the price was right or the threat was precise.”
I became Clara for them too.
Sometimes I played the investor, sometimes the seductress, sometimes the bored heiress with too much power and not enough leash. I whispered about better profits. About stronger networks. About safer futures
And a few of them listened
One by one, they started to shift Slowly. Carefully Nothing that would raise alarms. But the foundation beneath Zeus Lambert began to crack whether he knew it or not
The reports from my father’s men started changing tone. They no longer said Lambert empire. They started saying Lambert instability Zoraya’s grip was weakening. Some of the guards she’d hired had started taking bribes to look the other way. The maids whispered about he screaming fits and glass shattering tantrums ||
She was losing her shine.
The kind of woman who shines only when the world spins around her–never strong enough to spin it herself
The whispers grew she was paranoid, moody, erratic. One even said she slapped the nanny across the face because the baby cried too long
I read it all. I let it settle inside me like ice.
They were unraveling. Slowly.E
But not nearly slow enough for my taste.
I wanted Zeus to feel it. The silence. The dread. The slow realization that the walls were shrinking. That the people he trusted now looked away when he entered a room.
when he left me kneeling in the rain, bleeding, while the
I wanted him to feel powerless. And then I wanted him to remember how it felt w woman he replaced me with watched me fall.”
This wasn’t revenge. Not yet
This was foreplay.
