Chapter 4 - THE MIRAGE OF LOYALTY
Victor didn't run. He was too smart for that, and he had too many men in the building to feel immediate panic. Instead, he set his glass down on the cherrywood desk, his expression hardening into a cold, clinical mask.
"So," Victor said, leaning back against the desk. "The great Damian Moretti finally figured out how to read a balance sheet. It took you nine years, Damian. I expected better from the man who conquered the North Side."
Damian didn't strike him. He didn't even raise his voice. The rage inside him was too massive, too absolute, to be expressed in a common fistfight.
"Why?" Damian asked.
"Why?" Victor sneered, his veneer of respect finally cracking to reveal the bitter, envious man underneath. "Because you were soft, Damian! You married a woman who wanted you to be a regular citizen. You were spending half your time planning family vacations while the Salazars were encroaching on our docks. If you had stayed with her, you would have let this empire crumble. I had to cut her out. I had to make sure you had nothing left to live for but the organization."
"And the boy?" Damian’s voice was a whisper, but it carried the force of a physical blow. "My son?"
"The bastard?" Victor laughed. "I made sure Briggs buried that DNA report so deep you’d never find it. I knew that if you found out he was yours, you’d go running back to her like a whipped dog. I couldn't let that happen. The Moretti family needs a leader, not a father."
"You made a mistake, Victor," Damian said.
"I don't think so," Victor said, reaching into his coat pocket. "I’ve had men watching Harrow Falls for the last forty-eight hours, Damian. The moment my team in New York warned me that your auditors were looking at the Panama accounts, I sent Marcus to Pennsylvania. If you don't authorize the transfer of the shipping docks to my name by midnight tonight... well, I hear the roads in Harrow Falls are very slippery in the rain. Especially for a nine-year-old boy walking home from school."
Before Victor could even register the movement, Damian was across the room.
His hand, thick as a spade, caught Victor by the throat, slamming him back against the heavy cherrywood desk. The wood groaned under the impact, pens and folders scattering across the floor.
"You touch him," Damian snarled, his face inches from Victor's, his dark eyes burning with a feral, terrifying madness. "You touch either of them, and I will personally skin you alive in front of your own men. Do you understand me?"
Victor gasped for air, his face turning a dark, mottled purple as Damian's grip tightened around his windpipe. He tried to reach for the gun in his shoulder holster, but Damian’s other hand caught his wrist, twisting it back until a sickening pop echoed through the quiet study.
Victor screamed, a high-pitched sound of pure agony.
"The docks are yours, Damian!" Victor choked out, his eyes bulging with terror. "I’ll call them off... I’ll call Marcus..."
"You don't call anyone," Damian said, releasing his grip just enough to let Victor slump to the floor, coughing and clutching his broken wrist. "You’re going to sit in my cellar, Victor. And you’re going to pray that my family is safe when I get to Pennsylvania. Because if so much as a single scratch is on my son's face, you won't live to see the sunrise."
Damian turned to the double doors of his study.
"Colton!" he roared.
May you like
Two of Damian’s most loyal security detail, men who had been with him since his father’s time, stepped into the room, their eyes wide as they saw Victor on the floor.
"Take him downstairs," Damian ordered, not looking back. "And get my car ready. We're going to Harrow Falls."
