Chapter five– The Moretti Princess[Part 1]
1375 Words
The elevator ride up to the Moretti penthouse feels longer than the one that took Ava down into the auction’s hell.
She watches herself in the mirrored walls as the numbers climb.
Her black dress is still damp at the hem. There’s a faint smear of someone else’s blood near the slit. Mascara shadows under one eye. Her lips are swollen from a man she should never have let touch her.
From the outside, you’d think she went to a very exclusive party and had a very reckless night.
From the inside, everything feels… shifted." Tilted.
She tugs her sleeve down over her wrist, hiding the Moretti crest—and the faint red mark where Damian’s fingers dug in. The place his mouth crushed against hers felt bruised, tender, and wrong.
*He has the drive. He has my name. And he knows exactly what I am.*
She drags her fingers through her hair, lifts her chin, and pulls the old mask into place.
Invisible. Controlled. Untouchable.
The Moretti princess.
The elevator dings softly. The doors slide open to the private foyer: polished marble, a silent water feature trickling down a slate wall, a huge abstract painting in aggressive reds and blacks.
Two men in dark suits straighten as she steps out.
“Miss Ava,” one of them—Marco—says, eyes flicking quickly over her. “We didn’t know you’d gone out.”
“Spur of the moment,” she answers lightly, shrugging out of her coat. “Could you bring up some tea? Something with caffeine.”
“Yes, miss.”
As he takes the coat, his gaze catches on the curve of her neck. She feels him freeze on the faint reddened patch just below her ear, where Damian’s jaw scraped when he kissed her like he was hiding a crime.
She lifts a hand casually, smoothing her hair down, cutting off his view.
“Just cold out,” she adds before he can comment and pushes through the glass doors into the main living space.
The Moretti penthouse is a temple to wealth and ego. Two stories of glass overlooking Central Park. Black-and-white marble floors. Steel and leather furniture. Art was chosen more for price than meaning. A floating spiral staircase curls up to the private bedrooms.
Tonight, the place smells like expensive scotch and anger.
Vince Moretti stands by the floor-to-ceiling windows, phone pressed to his ear, suit jacket off, tie loosened. His salt-and-pepper hair is immaculate; his posture radiates controlled fury.
“…I don’t care what the club says,” he snaps into the phone. “You had one job—keep it clean. Something like that happens on your property again, I walk. And everyone knows if Moretti walks, the city follows. Understood?”
On the leather sectional, her brothers sprawl like they own the skyline.
Luca, the eldest, in shirtsleeves with his feet up. Marco (the younger, not the guard) and Alessandro half-watching sports highlights on the wall screen, half eavesdropping.
Near the hallway, hands clasped behind his back stands Leo.
Leo Hart. Head of security, Ava’s childhood shadow. The only person who ever told Vince “no” and survived it.
He looks up the second Ava steps inside.
His gaze slams into her like a searchlight.
“What happened?” he demands, already moving toward her.
She forces a small, practiced smile. “Relax. I just went out.”
“At midnight?” His eyes sweep her more carefully now—the damp hem, the smear on her dress, the smear of mascara, the tension in her shoulders. His jaw locks. “You’re hurt?”
“Not my blood,” she says quietly, tucking her hand into her pocket so he won’t see the tremor—or the outline of the crest under her sleeve.
Leo goes white, then hard. “Where?”
She doesn’t answer.
She doesn’t have to.
Vince ends his call with a final, “You have twenty-four hours to fix it,” and turns.
His gaze sweeps the room, lands on Ava.
For a second—just one—there’s something like relief in his eyes.
Then, he takes in her state.
Relief vanishes.
“Where were you,” he says.
Not a question. An accusation.
The sports highlights mute. Her brothers look over, amused, curious.
Ava lifts her chin a fraction. “Out.”
“Out,” Vince repeats, voice flat. “Out *where*, Ava?”
“Nowhere that concerns you,” she replies before self-preservation can throttle the words back.
The temperature in the room drops.
“Ava.” Leo’s voice is a warning at her shoulder. “Don’t.”
Vince walks toward her slowly, like a man approaching a dog he’s not sure will bite.
“Do I look like a man whose night you want to test?” he asks.
His hand is empty. That’s always more dangerous than when he’s holding a glass. There’s nothing to distract from the quiet, contained violence.
She could lie. Say she was with Cass. Say she was on a date. Say she was at some rooftop bar.
Instead, Damian’s voice slinks through her head. *Run along, princess.*
“I went out,” she repeats calmly. “I came back. In one piece. You’re welcome.”
Something dark flickers through Vince’s expression.
Luca whistles under his breath. “She’s getting bold.”
“Shut up,” Marco mutters.
Leo steps a little in front of her, not overt, but there. “Mr. Moretti, maybe this can—”
“Not now, Leo,” Vince snaps, eyes never leaving Ava. “Where you go reflects on my name. My investments. When something like tonight happens in this city, I expect to know where every piece on my board is.”
“Something like tonight?” Ava asks. “What happened?”
His gaze narrows. “You don’t watch the news?”
“Not the channels that worship real-estate tyrants,” she says.
Luca snorts. “Damn.”
Vince moves faster than she expects.
His hand slams into the wall beside her head. Not touching her, but close enough that she feels the rush of air.
The marble reverberates.
Leo jerks forward on instinct, then freezes when Vince’s head tilts half an inch his way.
“Careful,” Vince says softly. “You’re not drunk in your bedroom, flirting with danger on your phone. You’re in *my* house, with *my* name, in *my* city. You do not speak to me like some—some little—”
“Disappointment?” she offers bitterly. “Waste of resources?”
His jaw ticks.
He leans in, breath hot with scotch. “You are here because I allow it. Don’t confuse that with importance.”
The words slide neatly into the grooves carved into her years ago.
“Where. Were. You,” he repeats.
Her throat tightens. “Out with Cass.”
“Cass who?” he demands. “Which bar? Which driver took you? Why was your location not logged if you—”
“Because I didn’t take a driver,” she cuts in. “And I turned off location.”
The silence goes heavy.
Leo stares at her like she’s stepped into traffic.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he bites out.
She rounds on him. “Don’t you start.”
“I am literally head of—”
“Security,” she finishes. “Yes, Leo, I know your job title. You’re all very good at telling me where it’s unsafe while doing absolutely nothing about the people who actually make this city dangerous.”
Vince’s eyes flash. “Who have you been talking to?”
“Tenants. News. Basic human observation,” she says. “It’s amazing what you see when you look at the buildings you knock down as more than numbers.”
His fist curls against the wall, knuckles whitening.
From the couch, Alessandro mutters, “Here we go,” and sinks lower.
“Enough,” Vince says. “You will not drag my work through the mud in my own home because you had a tantrum and snuck out like a teenager. You want something, Ava? You *say* it. You do not—”
- Writer
