Chapter 6 - The Ultimatum on the Water"Claire—wait!"
I lunged forward, but Michael caught my arm, pulling me back. "Boss, don't! If she hits that transmitter, we're finished!"
"Let go of me!" I roared, shaking him off, but I didn't step onto the boat. I stood at the edge of the wooden dock, watching her navigate the narrow deck with the heavy, cautious grace of an expectant mother.
She turned back one last time before stepping down into the cabin.
"You have a choice now, Daniel," she called out over the roar of the diesel engines. "Burn the empire down yourself, walk away from the violence, and maybe—just maybe—years from now, you'll earn the right to know your daughter."
The cabin door slid shut with a heavy thud.
The cruiser’s propellers churned the dark water into a white, boiling froth, and the vessel began to glide slowly away from the wooden pier, heading out into the vast, gray expanse of Lake Michigan.
"Boss," Michael urged, stepping up beside me. "We can intercept her before she clears the breakwater. My sniper can disable the steering linkage from the chopper. She won't be harmed."
I stared at the receding wake of the boat.
For twenty years, my entire existence had been defined by one rule: Control everything. If something threatened my power, I crushed it. If someone betrayed me, I eliminated them. That was how Daniel Carter survived. That was how empires were built.
If I gave the order right now, Michael and his men would stop that boat. Claire would be brought back to the penthouse. The files would be locked away. And things would return to the dark, suffocating normal I had created.
Except she would never look at me with love again.
And my daughter would grow up knowing that her father was a tyrant who imprisoned her mother to protect his own skin.
"Stand down, Michael," I said.
Michael stared at me in disbelief. "Boss? Are you insane? She’s taking our entire life's work—"
"I said stand down!" I roared, the sheer fury in my voice echoing across the empty marina.
Michael lowered his head, stepping back into the shadows of the dock.
I stood alone at the edge of the pier, watching the boat grow smaller and smaller against the horizon until it finally vanished into the gray fog of the lake.
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My empire was intact. My men were loyal. My money was safe in Swiss and Cayman accounts.
And I had never felt more completely, utterly powerless in my entire life.
