Chapter 4 - Traitor in the House
The ride back to the Blackwood Estate was executed under maximum tactical security. Clara was hooked up to an IV drip in the back of the SUV, monitored by my personal physician, while Emma slept peacefully across my lap, exhausted from the ordeal.
My mind was a raging storm of fury and cold calculation.
Marcus had been my father’s most trusted lieutenant. He was the man who sat at my right hand, the man who comforted me after my brother’s death, and the man who had been subtly pushing for an all-out war with the O'Sullivans to cover his own tracks.
He had tried to kill my family twice. And today, he was going to pay the debt in full.
By midnight, the Blackwood Estate was locked down like a fortress. Clara’s fever had broken thanks to medical treatment, and she rested in the master suite upstairs, with Emma curled up beside her under high-thread-count silk sheets.
In the grand study downstairs, the atmosphere was suffocatingly tense.
The heavy oak doors opened, and Marcus walked in, accompanied by two of his personal guards. He wore a million-dollar smile and a tailored Italian suit, looking every bit the loyal mob lieutenant.
"Lucas," Marcus said warmly, stepping into the room. "Harold said you called an emergency council? Did we locate the O'Sullivan cell responsible for the Bentley bomb?"
I sat behind my massive mahogany desk, sipping a glass of scotch. Harold stood in the shadows behind Marcus, his hands folded behind his back.
"Sit down, Marcus," I said softly.
Marcus paused, picking up on the eerie calm in my voice. He slowly sat in the leather armchair across from me. "Is something wrong, boss?"
"Seven years ago," I began, swirling the amber liquid in my glass, "a set of internal accounting ledgers went missing from my father's safe. Along with my head accountant, Clara Carter."
Marcus’s posture stiffened for a fraction of a second, his eyes flashing with subtle panic before he smoothed his expression back over. "Clara? Why bring up a dead woman now? She probably stole your money and fled the country."
"She didn't steal anything," I replied, setting my glass down with a heavy clack against the wood. "She was preserving evidence. Evidence that showed you were siphoning off thirty percent of our shipping revenues to fund your own private syndicate... and that you paid an O'Sullivan hitman to blow up my brother's car when he got too close to the truth."
Marcus’s face turned into a cold mask. He slowly reached toward his jacket. "Lucas, you're being paranoid. Who told you this nonsense?"
"I did," a voice echoed from the doorway.
Marcus whipped his head around.
Clara stood at the entrance of the study, dressed in a black silk robe, supported by a cane but standing tall. In her hand, she held a high-capacity encrypted flash drive—the final piece of evidence detailing seven years of treason.
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"Clara..." Marcus breathed, his eyes wide with horror. "You..."
"And you forgot one small detail, Marcus," I said, standing up from my desk, my voice dropping into a register of pure, lethal promise. "You didn't just threaten my accountant. You threatened my daughter."
