Chapter 7 - The Ghost of Astor Street
A week passed. Seven days of total, agonizing silence.
Moretti Enterprises ran on autopilot. The board of directors held emergency sessions, the media swarmed the arrest of Vanessa Reed, and the business press speculated wildly about the sudden disappearance of the city's most feared corporate titan.
Vincent didn't care. He hadn't set foot in the office since the morning Vanessa was dragged away in chains.
He lived in the darkened penthouse on Astor Street, wandering from room to room like a phantom condemned to haunt the site of his own crimes. He hadn't shaved. The bespoke suits lay discarded on the floor; he wore an old, faded gray sweater that Claire used to steal from him during their early days in the West Loop loft.
The silence of the penthouse was deafening. Every ticking clock had been ripped from the walls and smashed to pieces. He couldn't bear the sound of ticking. Every second sounded like a mechanical mockery: *Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes.*
He spent hours sitting on the floor of the empty guest room—the room that was supposed to have been the nursery.
In his lap, he held the sonogram Dr. Ellis had given him when Vincent had practically kicked down the doors of Chicago Memorial Hospital three days ago, demanding every shred of medical data, every image, every note regarding his wife’s care.
The image was barely larger than a postage stamp. A tiny, blurry gray bean nestled against the dark lining of a womb.
*Our baby,* Vincent thought, his fingers gently tracing the thermal paper, his shoulders shaking with silent, uncontrollable sobs. *You were here. You had a heartbeat. And your father didn't give you even fifteen minutes of his life.*
He had hired three different elite private intelligence firms to find Claire. The best operatives in the country. Men who tracked international fugitives and recovered stolen assets across continents.
Every morning, the reports came back identical: *Target untraceable.*
Claire had prepared her exit with devastating, brilliant precision. She hadn't used a single credit card. She hadn't boarded a commercial flight. She hadn't withdrawn money from any linked accounts. She had vanished into the vast expanse of the country, leaving behind every luxury, every jewel, every shred of the Moretti identity.
She had stripped him of his only power.
Vincent Moretti could buy politicians, hostile corporations, real estate portfolios, and private armies. But you cannot buy a woman who wants absolutely nothing from you.
On the eighth night, Vincent sat at the long mahogany dining table in the dark.
A single candle flickered in the center. Across from him sat an empty chair.
He looked at his bare wrist. The Patek Philippe was gone, thrown into the dark waters of Lake Michigan three days ago.
The clock on his phone read 8:00 PM.
"Claire," Vincent spoke aloud into the vast, empty room, his voice hoarse, cracking with the weight of unspeakable grief. "It’s eight o'clock. I'm here."
No one answered. Only the low whistle of the autumn wind pressing against the panoramic glass.
"I fired the entire executive committee today," he whispered to the empty chair. "I restructured the foundation. Fifty million dollars has been transferred to Chicago Memorial’s neonatal trauma center in our child's name. I... I dismantled the schedule. There are no appointments. There are no rules."
He pressed his face into his hands, tears soaking through his fingers.
"I have all the time in the world now, Claire. All of it. Every hour. Every day. Every breath."
He wept until his ribs ached, until his eyes burned with salt, waiting for an answer that the empty room could never give.
He was finally ready to listen.
May you like
And she was gone.
***
