Chapter 8 - Sins of the Fathers
Castillo choked on his own blood, terror finally breaking through his arrogant facade. "Kill me and the council will declare war, Alessandro! The Commission won't let you wipe out the Castillo syndicate over a bastard child!"
"She is not a bastard," Alessandro growled, cocking the hammer of the gun. The metallic click echoed like a death knell. "She is Sophie Moretti. The sole heir to everything I own. And you are trespassing on family ground."
"Alessandro, stop!"
Isabella’s voice cut through the violence like a ray of morning sunlight. She stepped forward from the shadows, her clothes torn, snow clinging to her hair, her face streaked with tears. Sophie was quiet now, watching the scene with wide, innocent brown eyes.
Alessandro looked up, his hand still holding Castillo down. "He tried to murder you, Isabella. He tried to extinguish our child. In my world, blood pays for blood."
"Then change your world," Isabella cried, her voice breaking. "If you kill him like this, in front of her, you are proving everything my father said about you! You will be dragging Sophie into the exact same cycle of slaughter that killed your brother and your father! Look at her, Alessandro! Is this the legacy you want her to see?"
Alessandro froze. His chest rose and fell in heavy, ragged gasps as he looked from Castillo’s terrified eyes to Isabella’s tear-stained face, and finally to the tiny infant wrapped in his own dark overcoat. For thirty-seven years, Alessandro had known only one language: absolute dominance, immediate retribution, and the cold logic of survival. But looking at his daughter’s pure, untainted gaze, the armor around his heart cracked wide open.
Slowly, deliberately, Alessandro uncocked the hammer and stepped back, lowering the gun.
"Marco," Alessandro called out without taking his eyes off Isabella.
"Boss?" Marco appeared at the door.
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"Hand Castillo over to the federal prosecutors along with the ledger we seized from Dominic’s safe," Alessandro ordered coldly. "Let the Justice Department dismantle his operations brick by brick. He spends the rest of his miserable life in a maximum-security penitentiary in Florence, Colorado. If he ever speaks my daughter’s name again, execute the entire family portfolio."
Marco nodded respectfully, hauling the broken Castillo to his feet and dragging him out into the night.
