Chapter 2

"Bullshit!"

The blood drained from Silas's face.

He lunged forward and shoved the old butler aside. His eyes were wild as he glared at the screen. "Who the hell does the Commission think they are? Someone set me up! Old man, did somebody pay you to screw me over?"

The butler slammed against the metal rack. He kept his head down and didn't utter a word.

"Shut up."

Gideon's voice was low, but every word carried murder.

He snatched the tablet and swiped across the glass. The blue glare hit his face. His skin went totally ashen.

The cell tower logs were crystal clear. Eleven forty-five that night. The encrypted beacon went live from the top-floor VIP lounge at the strip club on Riverside.

That room was Silas's private playground.

Every frame of security footage was logged. From start to finish, Silas was the only one who scanned his thumbprint on that door.

"That's a shared channel!" Silas yelled, veins bulging down his throat. He swung around and jabbed a finger in my face. "It's her! That old bitch held every master code before she stepped down! She hacked my feed! She wants us dead so she can take back the seat!"

I sat in the chair and let out a cold, sharp laugh.

"Our family channels run on dual-rolling encryption. Every transmission requires a biometric print." I looked up at him, cold and still. "You watched me burn my master key the day I stepped down. And no matter how long my reach is, Silas, I don't have your thumb."

Silas choked on his words. "So what? You probably kept a back door!"

Beside me, Alessia's face went dead white. The sweet, weeping daughter act vanished. Fear and guilt flickered in her eyes.

"There's more, sir," the butler said, swallowing hard. He brought up a second set of records. "The High Commission froze the offshore hedge accounts. Three days before the Black Siren went down, the rival cartel shorted our entire line. They cleared sixty million in pure profit. Ten minutes after the boat hit the lake bottom, they wiped Silas's thirty-five-million-dollar marker completely clean."

Bank statements. Promissory notes. Wire logs. The proof was written in stone.

This wasn't an intelligence leak. It was an inside job. A calculated purge.

The basement went dead silent.

Gideon turned slowly. He lifted the Glock off my forehead and pointed it straight at Silas.

"You owed money?" Gideon asked, his voice completely flat.

Silas backed away until his spine hit the concrete wall. "Gideon... listen to me. It was a setup! The cage fights were rigged! I was just trying to win it back—"

"You put up eighty million in family iron to cover your sixty-million-dollar hole?" Gideon stepped in. The barrel stayed locked on Silas's forehead. "What else did they give you, huh? They cleared your debt, and did they promise to put me on that boat too?!"

"No! I swear to God, I never wanted to hurt you!"

Silas broke completely.

His knees gave out. He dropped onto the concrete and scrambled forward on all fours, clutching Gideon's leather shoes.

"Gideon! I screwed up! They got video of me getting high and throwing the fights! They said they'd chop me into pieces and dump me in the lake! They forced my hand! You have to save me! You're the Don now, you can cut a deal with the Commission! Tell me you can!"

He sobbed hysterically, clawing at Gideon's pant legs. Snot and tears smeared across his brother's clean leather boots. No pride. No dignity.

Gideon looked down at him. His eyes were cold and completely empty.

The next second, without warning, he kicked Silas hard in the face. The sound of his nose breaking was sharp and sickening.

Silas screamed and flew backward, flipping the metal table. He curled into a ball on the concrete, clutching his ruined, bloody face and twitching.

Alessia flinched. She stared at the pool of fresh blood spreading across the floor. She didn't move an inch, but her knuckles went white.

Gideon didn't say a word. He pulled a white handkerchief from his suit pocket and wiped the blood off the toe of his boot. Then he tossed the rag over Silas's face.

When he was done, Gideon turned back around.

I watched him walk toward me, step by step.

The explosive rage was gone from his face. It was replaced by something far more sickening: pure, cold calculation.

The Glock came back up. The hammer stayed cocked. The black muzzle leveled right between my eyes.

"Mom," Gideon said, looking down at me. "Silas is an idiot. But this family can't afford an eighty-million-dollar hit. Out there, your name still carries weight. You know what needs to happen."