Chapter 7 - The Ledger of Judas
Albert swallowed hard, his chest heaving inside his velvet jacket. He looked up at the mezzanine, silently begging his loyalists to open fire, but Victor’s men had already disarmed every sniper stationed in the rafters. The click of twenty automatic rifles being cocked in unison signaled his utter isolation.
""Darius, be reasonable!"" Albert plead, stepping backward until the high table pressed against his thighs. ""This is a misunderstanding! The girl was meeting Lorenzo! I showed you the photographs! She was selling us out!""
Elena stepped forward, pulling herself free from Darius’s protective arm. Though she was dressed in a grease-stained apron, her posture carried the authority of an empress. She reached into the pocket of her oversized server slacks and pulled out a small, water-damaged black leather notebook—the one item she had saved from her travel bag before Victor took her car.
""Page forty-two, Albert,"" Elena said, her voice clear and ringing across the silent room. ""The transfer of three million dollars from our terminal accounts to the Zurich deposit box under your mother’s maiden name. Page forty-six: the shipping manifests for the five cargo containers of unregistered arms that you allowed federal agents to seize last month to weaken Darius’s position before the board.""
Lorenzo Romano let out a low whistle, shaking his head. ""Well, Albert... you told me the girl was an amateur. Seems she did your accounting better than your own firm.""
Albert’s eyes darted frantically. ""She’s lying! She forged those entries to save her own skin!""
""Victor has the raw hard drives from your brownstone office, Uncle,"" Darius said, walking toward the dais with measured, terrifying calm. ""My men recovered them twenty minutes ago. They match Elena’s notebook down to the exact cent.""
Darius stopped at the foot of the stage. He looked down at the grand feast—the roasted meats, the imported truffles, the silver ice buckets sweating in the heat.
""You sat at my father's table for forty years,"" Darius said, his voice deceptively quiet. ""He gave you half the docks. He gave you a third of the casinos. When he died, I treated you as my own flesh. And yet, you coveted the seat so deeply that you plotted to slaughter my wife like a dog in the marsh grass.""
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""I did it for the family!"" Albert screamed, his aristocratic facade shattering into desperate, ugly hysteria. ""You were going soft! Ever since you married that hospital girl, you started refusing drug contracts! You started cleaning up the transport lines! You were turning our empire into a damn charity!""
""She didn't make me soft, Albert,"" Darius said, reaching out and wrapping a hand of iron around his uncle's silk tie, pulling him down until their faces were inches apart. ""She made me human. And tonight, you took that humanity away.""
