Chapter 7 - The Traitor in the Bloodline
I left six armed guards stationed inside Sophie’s room and placed a full tactical perimeter around the hospital's private wing.
My armored Maybach tore through the morning traffic of Michigan Avenue like a black wraith, escorted by two blacked-out SUVs.
Marcus sat in the passenger seat, his laptop open, pulling encrypted communication logs from the headquarters of Moretti Holdings.
"I traced the signature on the revised severance packet, Boss," Marcus said, his voice thick with unease.
"The override code came directly from the executive terminal on the forty-second floor."
"It belongs to Dominic."
Dominic Moretti.
My first cousin, the son of my father's late younger brother, and the man I had entrusted with managing our domestic asset holdings.
Dominic had always been ambitious, a smooth-talking shark who believed the family should cut all emotional ties and operate purely on cold, ruthless profit margins.
When we arrived at the corporate tower, the security guards in the lobby snapped to attention, their faces draining of color as they saw the thunderous expression on my face.
I didn't take the elevator to my own penthouse office.
Instead, I walked straight into Dominic's corner suite on the forty-second floor, kicking the double mahogany doors open with such violence that the hinges snapped.
Dominic was sitting behind his glass desk, nursing an espresso while reviewing shipping manifests with two junior associates.
At the sight of me, the two associates scrambled out of the room like frightened mice, leaving Dominic alone to face the storm.
He stood up, adjusting the silk tie of his bespoke Italian suit, forcing a practiced, condescending grin onto his face.
"Ethan, what an unexpected entrance," Dominic said smoothly, leaning his hands casually on the desk. "I hear you spent your night playing hero at the docks instead of attending the regional syndicate summit."
I crossed the room in three strides, vaulting over the glass desk before Dominic could even flinch.
My hand clamped around his throat like a steel vice, driving his head down onto the tempered glass with a deafening crack.
"Did you think I wouldn't find out, Dominic?" I snarled, leaning down until my breath stirred the hair at his temple.
Dominic choked, clawing desperately at my fingers as the glass beneath his cheek began to spiderweb under the immense pressure.
"What... what are you talking about?" he wheezed, his eyes bulging with genuine panic.
"Sophie," I hissed, tightening my grip until his face turned a mottled purple.
"You forged my authorization code."
"You canceled her medical coverage forty-eight hours after the divorce."
"You threatened her with corporate enforcers if she dared reach out to me."
"You left my wife to bleed out in a public clinic because you thought she was an inconvenient liability."
Dominic coughed, blood trickling from the corner of his split lip onto the polished glass.
"She... she was a nobody, Ethan!" Dominic gasped out, trying to find his voice despite the agony in his neck.
"She was weak!"
"She lost two heirs to the Moretti name and spent months crying in the dark like a useless child!"
"The syndicate was laughing at you behind your back because your wife couldn't even carry a pregnancy to term!"
"You were going soft because of her, Ethan!"
"I did what had to be done to protect the family's image and trim the dead weight!"
A roaring darkness exploded behind my eyes, obliterating every shred of restraint I had cultivated over a decade of leadership.
I hauled Dominic off the desk and threw him across the room, smashing him through the antique display cabinet filled with crystal decanters.
Glass shattered in an explosion of glittering shards, raining down on Dominic as he collapsed onto the carpet, groaning in agony.
I drew my custom Kimber .45 from beneath my coat, cocking the hammer with a sharp, metallic click that echoed through the quiet office.
I pressed the warm barrel directly between Dominic’s eyes, my finger resting lightly against the hair-trigger.
"The only dead weight in this family is you, cousin," I said, my voice eerily calm, devoid of all human emotion.
"Ethan, please!" Dominic shrieked, terror stripping away every ounce of his aristocratic arrogance. "We share the same blood! Uncle Marco would never forgive you if you killed me!"
"My father would have executed you the minute you turned against family honor," I replied coldly.
I shifted the barrel two inches down and pulled the trigger.
The gunshot deafened the room as the hollow-point round shattered Dominic’s right kneecap.
Dominic let out an inhuman scream of agony, clutching his ruined leg as blood pooled rapidly into the expensive Persian rug.
Marcus stepped into the room, unbothered by the violence, waiting patiently for my instructions.
"Strip him of every asset, every bank account, and every deed bearing the Moretti name," I ordered, wiping a speck of blood from my cufflink.
"Drag him down to the basement cells at the South Side warehouse."
"He will stay there in the dark until Sophie is fully recovered and decides whether he gets to keep breathing."
May you like
I turned my back on my weeping cousin and walked out of the office, my mind already racing back toward the hospital.
The rot inside my house had been excised, but the danger to Sophie was far from over.
