Chapter 6 - The Sister's Treason
The rain lashed against the brick parapet, but Dominic felt as though he were standing in an airless void.
Thirty feet below in the narrow alley, the scene was illuminated by the harsh, predatory high beams of three armored vans. Standing on the wet asphalt, flanked by eight heavily armed private contractors, was Sophia Duarte.
Sophia. The girl Dominic had funded through law school. The girl who had sat at his kitchen table every Sunday after Elena’s supposed death, drinking his wine, accepting his monthly checks, and crying on his shoulder about the sister they had both lost.
"Sophia..." Dominic breathed, the name tasting like ash and iron.
He didn't waste time questioning the dead sniper at his feet. With one brutal shove, he tossed the unconscious contractor aside, vaulted over the fire escape railing, and slid down the rusted iron ladder, hitting the wet asphalt with a muted thud twenty feet behind the Suburban.
Sophia didn't run. She stood calmly beneath a large black umbrella held by one of her operatives, her tailored trench coat pristine, a cold, clinical smile touching her red lips as she watched Dominic emerge from the shadows.
"You always were remarkably difficult to kill, Dominic," Sophia said, her voice smooth, cultured, and devoid of the sweet, weeping innocence she had displayed for six years.
Inside the Suburban, Elena had seen her sister.
The driver’s side door swung open, and Elena stepped out into the pouring rain, her face pale with an agonizing, disbelieving horror that stripped away every ounce of her strength.
"Sophia...?" Elena whispered, her voice cracking as she walked toward the woman she had raised like a daughter after their parents died. "Sophia, what are you doing? Why are you with these men?!"
Sophia looked at her older sister, her dark eyes devoid of familial warmth, carrying only the hard, polished calculation of a corporate mercenary.
"I'm securing my inheritance, Elena," Sophia replied, her tone conversational, as if they were discussing an overdue utility bill. "Did you really think I was going to spend my life living on the crumbs Dominic tossed my way? Five thousand dollars a month for rent while he sat on three billion dollars in real estate and maritime trusts?"
"I gave you everything!" Elena cried, tears streaming down her face, mixing with the freezing rain. "I gave up my life! I let them hide me on Nantucket so Dominic wouldn't be targeted by the Commission! I lived in poverty so you could finish your degree!"
"And you were an idiot for doing it!" Sophia snapped, her composure cracking for a split second, revealing the festering jealousy beneath. "You had the most powerful man in New England wrapped around your finger, and you ran away because of a moral crisis! When Vincent came to me six years ago with a plan to leverage the estate... I realized one sister was an obstacle. Two sisters was an enterprise."
Dominic stepped up beside Elena, his massive frame shielding her completely from the eight rifle barrels trained on their chests. His Sig Sauer was holstered, but his posture was absolute granite, his dark eyes locked onto Sophia with a terrifying, unblinking stillness.
"You placed the tracker in the boys' blazers," Dominic spoke, his baritone slicing through the rain.
"Of course I did," Sophia said, tapping the tablet in her hand. "Who do you think bought them their first-grade uniforms for their birthday last month? Auntie Sophia. I had the micro-transponders woven into the gold crests. I needed to know the exact moment Elena brought them off that island."
"Why tonight, Sophia?" Dominic asked, his voice dropping into a register that made the contractors shift their footing. "Why Il Trono?"
"Because Don Salvatore Vane needed proof that your bloodline was compromised before he agreed to finance my new firm," Sophia explained, gesturing to the vans behind her. "The Vane family doesn't want your docks, Dominic. They want the federal contracts your family holds for the deep-water harbor terminals. With you dead, and those four boys in my legal custody as their maternal aunt... I become the sole trustee of the Moretti estate."
She smiled, a cold, predatory baring of teeth.
"The probate court has already pre-signed the emergency guardianship papers, Dominic. My firm filed them at four o'clock this afternoon. The law recognizes me. It does not recognize a father who was legally declared sterile five years ago."
Inside the Suburban, the rear door clicked open.
Liam and Lucas poked their small heads out, their ivory blazers soaked, their eyes wide with confusion. "Auntie Sophia? Why are those men pointing guns at Mommy?"
Sophia didn't look at the boys. She raised her hand, giving a sharp, flicking signal to the lead contractor.
"Take the children," Sophia commanded. "Eliminate the parents."
The eight contractors raised their weapons in a synchronized, lethal arc.
Before a single trigger could be pulled, a massive, thunderous roar tore through the end of the alleyway.
A seventy-ton industrial cement truck, its massive steel drum spinning violently, blasted through the police barricades on Commercial Street at sixty miles an hour, barreling directly into the flank of Sophia’s three armored vans with the concussive force of an artillery strike.
Metal crumpled like tin foil. Shattered glass and shredded tires exploded into the air as the two lead vans were crushed against the brick warehouse wall in a blinding shower of orange sparks.
The contractors scattered in blind panic, diving for the pavement as the cement truck jackknifed across the alley, blocking the entire street in a fortress of twisted steel and billowing steam.
The driver's door of the cement truck kicked open.
Dropping down onto the wet asphalt was Marco, his arm bandaged, holding a military-grade combat shotgun, backed by twenty heavily armed Moretti soldiers swarming from the shadows of the docks.
"Nobody touches the Don's blood!" Marco roared, racking the shotgun with a deafening metallic clack.
Sophia shrieked in terror, her umbrella flying from her hands as her composure disintegrated into pure, feral hysteria. She turned to flee toward the harbor, clutching her tablet to her chest.
Dominic didn't draw his gun.
He lunged forward through the smoke and twisted metal like an apex predator. In four massive strides, he crossed the gap, his large, calloused hand clamping around Sophia’s throat from behind, lifting her two inches off the wet asphalt, slamming her spine hard against the brick wall of the alley.
Sophia choked, her fingers clawing frantically at his wrists, her dark eyes bulging in absolute, paralyzing terror as she looked into the face of the man she had betrayed.
Dominic leaned in until his lips brushed her ear, his baritone vibrating with a fury so profound it silenced the storm.
"You have ten seconds to tell me who authorized those probate papers, Sophia," Dominic whispered, his thumb pressing into her carotid artery. "Or I will break your neck, throw your body into the harbor, and let my boys forget you ever existed."
Sophia wheezed, her trembling hand lifting the tablet, pointing a shaking finger at an encrypted email displayed on the cracked screen.
May you like
The email was sent thirty minutes ago from an IP address inside the Massachusetts State House.
And the digital signature authorizing the immediate seizure of Dominic’s children belonged to the Governor of the Commonwealth himself.
