Chapter 7 - The Cleansing of Lake Forest
Within forty-eight hours of the mass arrests at the Drake Hotel, the Moretti criminal enterprise ceased to exist.
Federal receivers seized thirty-four commercial properties, four luxury hotel towers, twelve maritime shipping berths, and two hundred and forty million dollars in liquid offshore assets.
Under the provisions of the Federal Whistleblower Protection and Restitution Act, and pursuant to the emergency probate rulings of the Illinois Supreme Court, sixty percent of the unencumbered legitimate assets of the Moretti maritime fleet—valued at one hundred and eighty million dollars—were transferred into the permanent, sovereign ownership of The Isabella Clara Moretti Heritage Trust.
I was certified as the sole, unchallengeable legal executor and primary trustee, with full physical and legal custody of our daughter, free of all probate claims from the Moretti family.
Two weeks later, I returned to the Moretti ancestral estate in Lake Forest with a team of federal marshals, moving crews, and forensic locksmiths.
The house was vast, cold, and dark, smelling of stale cigar smoke, expensive polish, and decades of buried secrets.
I walked through the grand foyer where Donna Isabella had once mocked my grief, up the sweeping staircase to the master study where I had discovered the encrypted files eight months earlier.
I stood before the large oil portrait of Adrian that hung above the limestone fireplace—the proud, unyielding prince of the underworld.
"Take it down," I told the moving crew.
The heavy canvas was unhooked from the wall and carried away to the disposal trucks, revealing the clean, bare limestone beneath.
I opened the tall French doors of the study, letting the fresh, cool breeze off Lake Michigan flood into the room, blowing away the dust and the ghosts of the past forever.
Dr. Sarah Lin walked into the study, carrying one-month-old baby Isabella in a warm fleece wrap.
The baby was awake, her large, bright brown eyes looking around the sunlit room with calm, unshadowed curiosity.
May you like
I took my daughter into my arms, holding her close against my heart, kissing her soft forehead.
"Look around, Isabella," I whispered softly, looking out over the sparkling expanse of the lake where the morning sun turned the water to molten gold. "This house is clean now. It belongs to you."
