Chapter 5 - The Ledger of Blood and Debt
Mick O’Shea pressed himself further back against the supply cabinet, his breathing turning hyperventilated and erratic as he stared at the heavy black pistol resting inches from his trembling fingers.
"I can't... I won't touch it," Mick whimpered, tears pooling in the corners of his small, rat-like eyes. "Take everything I have, Mr. Costello! Take my accounts in the Caymans, take my real estate holdings in Queens, take the entire loan book! Just don't—please—"
"Your accounts were cleaned out twenty minutes ago, Mick," Carmine chimed in from the doorway, his voice dripping with dry amusement as he checked his watch. "Our financial team finished seizing your shell corporations while we were riding up the FDR. You’re officially broke. You don't even own the suit you’re crying on."
Mick let out a hollow, broken gasp, his knees giving out entirely as he slumped sideways against the linoleum floor. The realization that his entire empire, built on decades of crushing extortion and ruined lives, had evaporated in less than fifteen minutes hit him harder than any physical blow could have.
Victor didn't look down at him. He kept his attention focused entirely on Sadi, who was standing beside her brother’s bed, gently resting her raw, split fingers against the edge of the mattress.
"Sadi," Victor said, his voice softening just enough to cut through the hum of the heart monitor.
She looked up, her dark eyes wide and shimmering with unshed tears.
"He’s yours," Victor instructed simply. "Do whatever you feel is necessary to settle the balance."
Sadi stared at the pistol on the tray, then down at Mick, who was practically groveling at the foot of the bed, mumbling desperate, incoherent apologies. Every ounce of rage, exhaustion, and despair she had bottled up for the past eight months—the endless hours of scrubbing blood off marble, the burning pain in her hands from industrial bleach, the constant, suffocating fear that she would lose Sam the way she had lost her mother—surged upward like a tidal wave.
She stepped away from the bed, walking slowly toward the cowering loan shark.
Mick flinched, throwing his arms over his head as if expecting a physical blow. "Sadi—please, Sadi, I’m sorry, I have a family, I—"
"You don't get to talk about family," Sadi said, her voice dropping into a steady, glacial fury that surprised even herself. "You stood in this hospital, looking at a boy who can't even stand up, and treated his life like a ledger entry."
She reached down, her split knuckles brushing against the cold steel of the pistol grip. For a fraction of a second, her hand throbbed with pain, but she gripped the handle anyway, lifting the heavy weapon off the tray and pointing it straight down at Mick’s chest.
The room held its breath. Carmine watched with narrowed, approving eyes. Victor stood immovable, a silent pillar of absolute authority backing her every move.
Sadi held the weight of the gun for three long, agonizing seconds. Then, with a sharp flick of her wrist, she tossed the weapon across the floor, sliding it right into the toes of Carmine’s polished shoes.
"I don't kill cowards," Sadi whispered, looking down at Mick with cold, unyielding disdain. "And I don't dirty my hands with garbage."
She turned her back on him, walking back to her brother’s bedside, and gently smoothed the blanket over Sam’s thin shoulders.
May you like
Victor let out a low, approving breath. He looked over at Carmine. "Take him out of my sight. Send him to the docks in Jersey. Put him on the early morning cargo ship heading for the North Sea. Make sure he never sets foot in this hemisphere again."
"Done," Carmine said, grabbing Mick by the collar and hoisting him up like a sack of laundry before dragging him howling out of the room.
