Chapter 4 - The House of Mirrors
A dozen armed enforcers, led by Gabriel, poured into the room, their assault rifles instantly locking onto Victor and the three capos who had half-risen from their seats in support of his coup.
Victor froze, his pistol half-raised, his eyes darting toward the doors.
"Drop it, Victor," Gabriel snarled, the barrel of his weapon steady and centered on the traitor's chest.
Victor slowly lowered the pistol, but his composure didn't entirely shatter. A dark, cynical smirk twisted his lips. He looked at the capos who had hesitated, then back at me.
"You think you’ve won, Alessandro?" Victor laughed softly, shaking his head. "You think killing me stops what’s already in motion? Look at your books, look at your shipping manifests from the past three months. While you were sitting in this mansion playing chess, I signed over forty percent of our maritime routes to the North Side syndicate. By sunrise, their enforcers will take the docks, and your entire empire will collapse into ash."
I didn't blink. I slowly stood up from my chair, walking around the table until I stood just two feet away from the man I had trusted more than my own blood.
"You always were meticulous, Victor," I said quietly. "You planned the logistics, you bribed the accountants, you even arranged a nice little insurance policy with the North Side."
Victor’s smirk faltered slightly. "What are you talking about?"
I reached into my breast pocket, pulled out a thick manila folder, and dropped it onto the table in front of Dominic.
"That folder contains every digital transfer, every offshore shell company, and every encrypted message Victor sent to the North Side since June," I said, looking directly at the stunned capos. "Gabriel decrypted them at four this morning using the backdoor codes Victor so carelessly left on his private terminal—codes he assumed no one would ever check because he believed my mind was failing."
Dominic opened the folder, his eyes scanning the pages. Color drained entirely from his face.
"Mother of God," Dominic whispered, looking up at Victor with pure disgust. "You sold us out to our worst enemies."
Victor’s face turned the color of ash. He lunged forward with blinding speed, trying to grab me by the throat as a last-ditch desperate hostage play, but Gabriel was faster.
A heavy rifle butt slammed into Victor’s shoulder, dropping him hard to his knees on the marble floor. Two enforcers piled on top of him, snapping heavy steel zip-ties around his wrists.
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"Get him out of my sight," I ordered coldly. "Lock him in the lower shipping vault. Let him think about how a five-year-old girl dismantled twenty-five years of planning in six minutes."
As they dragged Victor away, his furious, cursing screams echoed down the long marble corridor until the heavy steel doors slammed shut, cutting him off from the world he had tried to steal.
