Chapter 6 - The Burning of the Marble Penthouse
The destruction of the Moretti empire was not a capitulation; it was a systematic, deliberate liquidation. Over the next month, Marco dismantled the criminal apparatus he had spent fifteen years constructing. He leaked his own financial ledgers to specific, uncorrupted federal prosecutors, ensuring his rivals would be tied up in legal grand juries for decades. He sold his legitimate assets, channeling the millions into blind trusts and anonymous offshore accounts created exclusively for Ellen and his unborn child.
As his final act of renunciation, Marco returned to the luxury marble penthouse downtown—the place where his infidelity had reached its sickening climax.
The apartment was empty, the furniture shrouded in white sheets like ghosts. He walked into the bedroom, remembering the sickening sight of Bianca lounging in his shirt, her malicious smile as she confessed to destroying his wife's life.
He felt a deep, profound loathing for the man he had been—a man who had allowed success to turn him into a cliché, a predator who mistook luxury for legacy.
Marco pulled a gold lighter from his pocket. He struck the flint and dropped it onto the silk curtains.
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The fire caught quickly, climbing the walls, devouring the expensive artwork, the imported rugs, and the pristine marble floors. He stood there until the smoke began to choke the room, watching his monument to arrogance turn to ash.
When the fire department arrived, Marco was already gone, driving away in a simple, unarmored sedan, leaving the smoking ruins of his criminal sovereignty behind him. He was no longer Don Moretti. He was a man stripped down to his bare essentials: a husband trying to find a way back to a kitchen floor.
