Chapter 9 - The Reckoning
At 3:00 AM, the storm reached its peak over Manhattan.
Inside his glass penthouse, Julian Moretti was pacing the floor, frantically dialing his team leader’s phone. Every call went straight to voicemail.
“Answer the phone, you idiot!” Julian screamed, throwing his glass against the glass wall.
“He’s not going to answer, Julian.”
Julian spun around, his heart stopping in his chest.
Dominic stood in the doorway of the penthouse. He wasn't accompanied by a noisy team of guards. He stood alone, wearing a dark suit, his hands tucked casually into his pockets, his face completely devoid of emotion. Behind him, Julian’s private bodyguards lay unconscious on the marble corridor floor.
“D-Dominic...” Julian stammered, backing away toward his desk, his hand reaching secretly toward the top drawer where a pistol was kept. “I... I heard there was an attack in Brooklyn! I was just trying to organize a security team to help you!”
Dominic walked slowly across the polished hardwood floor, his heavy leather shoes making no sound. “Three years ago, you paid a mechanic five thousand dollars to cut the brake lines on my Mercedes.”
Julian froze, his face turning ghost-white. “That’s... that’s a lie! Who told you that?!”
“Then,” Dominic continued, his voice dropping to a low, terrifying whisper that sounded like grinding stones, “you paid Marcus Vance at St. Vincent’s to make sure that if my daughter washed up alive on the docks, she wouldn't leave the hospital.”
“Dominic, listen to me!” Julian cried out, panic seizing his throat as he lunged for the desk drawer.
Before Julian’s fingers could touch the brass handle, Dominic moved with blinding, unnatural speed. He crossed the room, grabbed Julian by the throat with one hand, and lifted his brother off his feet, slamming him violently against the floor-to-ceiling glass window overlooking the hundred-foot drop below.
The heavy glass groaned under the impact.
Julian clawed frantically at Dominic’s iron grip, his legs dangling, his face turning purple as he stared down at the dizzying abyss of the city streets below.
“I let you take my shipping contracts,” Dominic rasped, his eyes burning with a dark, apocalyptic fury. “I let you sit in my office. I let you play the big man while I buried my grief in the dark. But you tried to murder my child twice, Julian. You sent armed men into a kitchen where a six-year-old girl was sleeping.”
“Please...” Julian choked out, tears of absolute terror streaming down his face. “Dominic... brother... please...”
“I have no brother,” Dominic said quietly.
He pulled Julian back six inches, then drove his fist square into Julian’s jaw, knocking him unconscious instantly. Dominic dropped his brother’s limp body onto the hardwood floor like a sack of trash.
Victor stepped into the penthouse from the hallway, holding a thick folder of financial evidence and federal warrants.
“Federal agents are waiting downstairs,” Victor said softly. “Marcus Vance has already been arrested at his home. Julian will spend the next forty years in a federal maximum-security prison for attempted murder, conspiracy, and treason.”
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Dominic stood over his fallen brother, adjusting his cuffs. He took one deep, clean breath of air—the first real breath he had taken in three long years.
“Let the feds have him,” Dominic said quietly, turning his back on Julian forever. “I have to go home. My daughter is waiting for me.”
