Chapter 6 - The Trap is Set
The next morning, Adrian acted his part perfectly.
When Dr. Vance arrived for his daily inspection, Adrian slumped in his chair, allowed his eyes to roll slightly, and drooled onto his collar.
“He seems particularly weak today, doctor,” Marcus remarked, standing by the fireplace with a glass of scotch in his hand. “How much time does he have left?”
Dr. Vance checked Adrian’s sluggish pulse. “His liver and kidneys are failing under the strain of the neurological degeneration. Another two weeks, perhaps three. We should have the final power-of-attorney documents signed by Friday, Marcus.”
“Good,” Marcus said coldly, taking a sip of his drink. “The board of directors is getting restless. Once Adrian signs over the remaining voting shares, we can finalize the transfer to our holdings in Geneva.”
Sitting in the chair, pretending to be a brain-damaged vegetable, Adrian heard every single word.
His soul burned with fury, but his mind remained razor-sharp.
That night, after the mansion fell silent, Adrian made his first move.
He didn't use the house phones or the estate computers; every communication line was monitored by Marcus’s security team. Instead, he pulled an old, encrypted satellite phone from a hidden compartment inside his bedroom wall—a secret vault that only he knew existed.
He dialed a number he hadn't called in three years.
The line rang twice before a deep, grizzled voice answered. “Speak.”
“Dominic,” Adrian said quietly.
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. The sound of a chair scraping against a floor echoed through the speaker.
“Boss?” Dominic Rossi’s voice cracked with disbelief.
Dominic was the former head of Adrian’s personal security detail—a loyal, ruthless man who had been ousted by Marcus two years ago under the pretense of "restructuring." Dominic had been forced into retirement, living quietly in a cabin in upstate New York, suspecting that something was deeply wrong within the Moretti family but unable to prove it.
“I need you, Dominic,” Adrian said. “Bring the old guard. The ones who served my father. The ones who didn't take Marcus’s money.”
“I can have twelve men at the estate in three hours, boss,” Dominic replied instantly, his voice thick with emotion. “What are we doing?”
“We are taking back what’s mine,” Adrian said. “And we are settling a debt for Claire and Sophie.”
Over the next forty-eight hours, Adrian coordinated a masterclass in silent warfare.
Using Dominic as his hands on the outside, Adrian secretly contacted federal prosecutors with whom he had maintained a quiet back-channel for decades. He provided them with digital copies of Thomas Carter’s ledger, exposing not only Marcus’s embezzlement but also a network of crooked cops, corrupt judges, and international money launderers who had been helping Marcus liquidate the Moretti assets.
At the same time, Adrian instructed Dominic to secure a specialized medical team from Johns Hopkins University.
When the specialists privately examined Adrian’s medical records and blood samples smuggled out by Dominic, they made a shocking discovery.
Adrian’s paralysis was not permanent.
The initial spinal trauma from the car explosion had caused severe swelling and nerve compression, but the damage was not a complete transection of the spinal cord. The reason Adrian had never recovered the use of his legs was that Dr. Vance had been regularly injecting him with localized neuromuscular blocking agents and heavy nerve depressants, keeping his muscles paralyzed and unresponsive.
With the poison leaving his system, the nerves were beginning to heal on their own.
On Thursday afternoon, while sitting alone in his sunroom, Adrian took a deep breath.
He gripped the armrests of his wheelchair.
He concentrated all his willpower on his legs.
Slowly, painfully, his right foot twitched. Then his knee lifted an inch off the footrest.
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A tear rolled down Adrian’s cheek—not of sorrow, but of fierce, unyielding triumph.
He was going to stand again. And when he did, he would bring down the wrath of God on the men who had destroyed his life.
