Chapter 9 - The Storm Breaks over the Estate
By three o'clock in the afternoon, the black sedans of the Vance family patriarch, Arthur Vance, pulled up to the front entrance of the mansion.
Arthur Vance—a towering, silver-haired man who had ruled the New York shipping unions for thirty years—stepped out into the courtyard, flanked by four armed guards. His face was thunderous with rage, his eyes bloodshot from a night of frantic phone calls.
Dominic walked out onto the stone veranda to meet him, accompanied only by Sal Caruso and Marcus.
"Where is my daughter, Dominic?" Arthur roared, his voice echoing off the stone walls of the estate. "You hold my daughter in your carriage house like a common criminal? Have you lost your mind?"
Dominic stood at the top of the stone stairs, looking down at the older man with absolute detachment.
"Your daughter brought a chemical weapon into my house, Arthur," Dominic said, his voice carrying clearly across the quiet courtyard. "She tried to put six inches of steel into my heart so she could hand my empire over to Marco Moretti."
Arthur froze, his rage momentarily faltering under the weight of the accusation. "That’s a lie! Isabella would never—"
Sal Caruso stepped forward, pulling a heavy tablet from his coat and tossing it down the stairs. It landed with a clatter at Arthur’s feet, its screen glowing with high-definition video footage taken from the estate's hidden security feeds, showing Isabella slipping the blue-capped syringe into the stuffed bear in the nursery corridor.
Arthur looked down at the screen, his face draining of color as he watched his daughter's deliberate, calculated betrayal played out in high definition.
"She used a four-year-old child's bedroom to hide the poison, Arthur," Dominic said, his gray eyes cold and unforgiving. "If that child hadn't brought the bear to me, I would be dead, and your family would be celebrating a merger with Miami."
Arthur bowed his head, the fiery defiance draining out of him all at once. He looked old, broken, and defeated. "What are your terms, Dominic?"
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"You relinquish all control of the Brooklyn piers by midnight," Dominic commanded. "You take Isabella, you leave the country, and if any member of the Vance family ever crosses the Hudson River again, I will personally see to it that your entire bloodline is erased."
Arthur didn't argue. He picked up the tablet, turned on his heel, and walked back to his car without saying another word.
