Chapter 4 - The House Cleans Itself
Six men in heavy tactical gear, wearing matte-black plate carriers and holding suppressed submachine guns, flooded the conference room in absolute, synchronized silence.
Daniel’s instincts were legendary, but he was outnumbered and outmaneuvered in a room designed by my own security detail. Before his barrel could rise two inches toward my heart, three laser sights painted a brilliant red grid across his chest.
“Drop it, Daniel,” a cold, gravelly voice echoed from the doorway.
It was Marcus—my actual chief of clandestine operations, a man whose existence Daniel had foolishly assumed he could bypass.
Daniel froze. His finger hovered over the trigger for one agonizing second, the calculation of survival playing out in his ice-blue eyes. He realized the brutal truth: his secret network inside my corporation wasn't as hidden as he thought.
With a slow, controlled sigh, Daniel slid his Glock across the marble table toward my fingertips, raising his empty hands into the air.
“You planned this,” Daniel muttered, glaring at me with undisguised venom.
“I didn't plan a betrayal, Daniel,” I said, picking up his gun and slipping it into my overcoat pocket with casual indifference. “I simply set a trap to see which of my dogs had forgotten who feeds them.”
Vincent was trembling now, his senior citizen facade completely crumbling away to reveal a desperate, cornered coward. He stood up, knocking his chair backward, his voice cracking with panic.
“Luca, wait! Listen to me! Thirty years! I buried your uncle! I helped your father consolidate the Brooklyn docks! You can’t throw all that away over a nameless nobody—!”
“She isn't a nameless nobody,” I interrupted, my voice cutting through his frantic excuses like a meat cleaver. “She is a mother working two jobs to keep her child safe in a city full of wolves like you. And you didn't just disrespect my house, Vincent. You broke the sacred rule you just lectured me about: protect our own.”
I turned my gaze toward Marcus.
“Take them down to the secure basement holding cells beneath the restaurant downtown,” I ordered calmly. “Hold them there until I decide whether to hand them over to the federal authorities on racketeering charges, or let the dock unions handle them personally.”
“Understood, boss,” Marcus replied crisply.
Two tactical operators stepped forward, grabbing Daniel and Vincent by their expensive silk lapels and hauling them toward the service elevator without an ounce of ceremony. Vincent sobbed openly as he was dragged past me, his expensive gold-rimmed glasses sliding down his nose and clattering against the marble floor.
Within ninety seconds, the conference room was empty once more, save for the overturned chairs and the lingering smell of expensive cigar smoke.
I stood alone at the end of the long table, staring out the massive glass windows at the glittering lights of Manhattan stretching out toward the horizon. The city looked peaceful from forty floors up, a glittering sea of neon and glass hiding a million secret tragedies. But tonight, at least one small corner of that city had been swept clean.
My cell phone buzzed in my pocket.
I pulled it out. A text message from an unknown number—or rather, the private encrypted line I had given Elena before she went downstairs.
“We’re in the executive suite. The door is locked. Mia is eating the crackers you sent up. Thank you, Mr. Moretti. For everything.”
May you like
A faint, genuine smile touched my lips for the first time all day.
I walked out of the conference room, leaving the wreckage behind, and took the private elevator down to the twentieth floor, ready to meet the new boss.
