Chapter 5 - The Surrender of the BossEthan looked up from the floorboards, staring at his ten-year-old son with a mixture of profound, weightless awe and agonizing grief.
"You have your father's brain, Noah," Ethan whispered rasply, tears streaming down his dark stubble.
"No," Noah corrected cleanly, closing his leather ledger with a sharp SNAP. "I have my mother's strength. I just inherited your math skills."
Ethan turned his tear-stained face toward me. He dragged his knees across the carpet until he sat at my feet, looking up at my midnight-blue gown, his hands hovering near the hem of my dress in total, absolute surrender.
"Claire..." Ethan wept, his broad shoulders shaking violently beneath his tailored suit jacket. "Forgive me... My God, Claire, forgive me... I will give you the shipping terminals. I will give you the hotels. I will tear my mother's name off every building in Chicago... Just let me be their father... Please, Claire... let me be a father."
Victoria rushed forward, grabbing Ethan’s shoulder with manic, frantic force. "Ethan! Get off your knees! You are an executive! You are a Sullivan! You don't bow to an ordinary girl!"
Ethan stood up fluidly.
His six-foot-two frame rose with a terrifying, sudden swiftness that made Victoria take two fast steps backward in panic.
The weeping, heartbroken father vanished for a fraction of a second, replaced by the sovereign Don of Chicago whose gray eyes held a lethal, freezing fire.
"Marco! Leo!" Ethan commanded flatly.
Two of his chief security officers stepped forward instantly, bowing their heads. "Don Ethan?"
"Escort my mother to her estate in Lake Forest," Ethan ordered, his baritone cold as shattered ice. "Revoke her corporate credit accounts. Remove her from the board of directors of Sullivan Holdings. If she attempts to contact my wife or my children ever again... lock her inside her wing permanently."
Victoria’s jaw sagged open in total, horror-stricken panic. "Ethan! I am your mother! You can't do this to me!"
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"You made me throw thirty dollars at the woman I loved ten years ago, Mother," Ethan spoke flatly, every word carrying an absolute, unyielding finality. "You stole ten years of my children's lives. You are lucky I am letting you keep the house."
Two broad-shouldered enforcers took Victoria by her arms, ushering her frantically down the side corridor as she screamed curses into the quiet ballroom.
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