Chapter 5 - The Confession in the DustVictor Vance gasped for air, his designer glasses flying off his face and shattering beneath the heel of my boot. He clawed weakly at the gravel, blood trickling from a scratch on his temple, looking up at me with eyes wide with desperate, animalistic terror.
"Alejandro... wait... let's talk," Vance choked out, his voice shaking. "We're businessmen. We can split the North Side docks fifty-fifty. I'll leave the state! I'll never come back to Illinois!"
I pressed the barrel of my rifle firmly against the center of his forehead.
"You think I care about the docks, Victor?" I whispered, my voice vibrating with a quiet, terrifying intensity. "You think a single square foot of concrete in this city is worth more than five minutes of peace for my sons?"
"I didn't know they were your boys!" Vance whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut. "I swear to God, I just knew Sofia had stashed away a fortune in European bearer bonds and set up a trust under four juvenile names! We thought she was hiding cartel money!"
"She wasn't hiding money," I growled, pressing the barrel harder until his skin indented. "She was hiding my flesh and blood from parasites like you."
"Please, Alejandro... mercy," Vance wept, his bravado entirely evaporated.
"Mercy is something you ask God for," I said coldly. "And God isn't on Lake Shore Drive today."
Before I could pull the trigger, my comms buzzed sharply.
"Boss! Boss, come in!" Marcus’s voice shouted, frantic and breathless.
I kept the rifle leveled at Vance’s head but tapped my comms. "Talk, Marcus."
"It's Elena, Boss! And the boys! They're gone!"
My heart stopped dead. The world around me—the burning gates, the smoking Maybach, the weeping rival boss—dissolved into absolute nothingness.
"What do you mean, they're gone?" I roared, my voice echoing across the courtyard. "I left them in the panic room!"
"I checked the panic room two minutes ago after clearing the west wing," Marcus panted rapidly. "The emergency override was triggered from the inside. Someone on our payroll—someone we trusted—must have given Elena the secondary passcode while we were fighting the breach in the foyer. They’ve been taken out through the drainage tunnel leading down to the harbor!"
Vance let out a weak, hysterical laugh beneath my boot.
"You... you think I was the only one hunting them?" Vance wheezed, blood bubbling on his lips. "The Syndicate board... they all knew Sofia had heirs. If I didn't get them... someone else higher up the chain did."
A cold, dead fury gripped my chest, so absolute and terrifying it transcended anger.
I didn't shoot Vance. I hauled him up by his collar with one hand and threw him like a ragdoll toward Marcus’s feet.
"Tie him up and throw him in the trunk," I commanded, my voice dropping into a tone that made even Marcus flinch. "If he moves an inch, cut off his hands."
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"Where are you going, Boss?" Marcus asked, watching my face.
"To get my sons back," I said, sliding a fresh, extended magazine into my rifle and pulling back the charging handle. "And God help anyone standing between me and my family."
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