Chapter 8 - The Fall of the Traitors
The silence in the boardroom was so heavy you could hear the hum of the air conditioning vents sixty floors above the city.
Vincent looked at Salvatore, his dark eyes burning with a rage so terrifying that two board members instinctively pushed their chairs backward.
"You used her?" Vincent growled, his voice dropping into a lethal, guttural register.
"You used my guilt over Sophia to keep me away from the docks while you stole from my father's empire?!"
"Vincent, wait, it wasn't like that!" Salvatore yelled, backing toward the corner of the boardroom as Vincent strode relentlessly down the length of the table.
"She came to me! Sophia needed money, and she knew you still had a soft spot for her!"
Vincent didn't wait for another excuse; he reached out with one massive hand, gripped Salvatore by the throat, and slammed him against the floor-to-ceiling glass window.
The glass creaked under the impact, sixty stories above the concrete streets of Chicago.
"You threatened my family's legacy," Vincent snarled into Salvatore’s face, his knuckles white around the collar.
"And you made me abandon my own daughter while she was burning with fever!"
"Vincent! Stop!" I commanded, my voice sharp, calm, and resonant.
Vincent paused, his chest heaving, his fist raised, looking back over his shoulder at me.
"Don't do it for him," I said quietly, holding his gaze across the room. "Do not give him the satisfaction of turning you into a murderer in front of this board."
"The Chicago Police Department and federal prosecutors are waiting in the lobby. Let the law take everything he has."
Vincent looked into my eyes, seeing the cold, unyielding resolve that had replaced the soft affection he had taken for granted for seven years.
He slowly lowered his arm, releasing Salvatore, who crumpled to the floor, gasping for air.
Within minutes, uniformed officers and federal agents flooded the boardroom, hauling Salvatore Moretti and his corrupt attorneys away in handcuffs.
May you like
Simultaneously, two blocks away, police officers kicked down the door of Sophia Reynolds’s luxury townhome, arresting her for corporate espionage, fraud, and conspiracy.
Her tears, her panic attacks, and her delicate performances could no longer save her from fifteen years in a federal penitentiary.
