Chapter 10 - The Mastermind’s Checkmate
My brow furrowed. "Grace? What are you doing?"
"You always believed you were the smartest man in New York, Dominic," Grace said, her voice dropping into a tone that made my skin crawl with sudden, icy dread. "You built an empire on blood, paranoia, and absolute control. But you made one fatal mistake twenty years ago."
She reached into her bag and pulled out an old, yellowed photograph, sliding it across the glass desk toward me.
I looked down.
The photograph showed a middle-aged man standing beside a ten-year-old girl with striking blue eyes. The man was Vincent Miller—the head of the Miller Syndicate, the rival empire I had utterly destroyed and slaughtered in 2006 to secure my rise to power.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a sledgehammer. "Vincent Miller..."
"My father," Grace whispered, leaning across the desk, her eyes cold, calculating, and empty of all warmth.
"You think Veronica and Anthony came up with the plot to cut your brake lines?" Grace laughed, a soft, chilling sound that echoed through the penthouse. "Veronica was stupid and greedy—easy to manipulate. I leaked your driving route on the FDR to her six weeks ago. I gave Anthony the contact details for Dr. Harrison. I was the architect, Dominic. I created the entire war inside your house."
I reached frantically for the concealed panic button beneath my desk, but my arm suddenly felt impossibly heavy. My knees buckled, and I collapsed heavily into my leather armchair, my breath catching in my throat.
"The scotch..." I gasped, staring at the glass in my hand.
"A subtle paralytic compound," Grace purred, walking around the desk with slow, deliberate steps. "The exact same compound Veronica tried to use. Except mine doesn't leave a trace, and it acts in less than two minutes."
She pulled a thick stack of legal documents from her bag—the very documents I had signed earlier that afternoon, believing I was authorizing emergency power over my corporate trusts to my federal defense team.
"You signed the asset transfer, Dominic," Grace murmured, tracing her fingers gently over my frozen face. "You gave one hundred percent of Moretti Enterprises to the 'Miller Charitable Trust'—a dummy organization fully owned by me."
My eyes darted frantically, my mind screaming, but my lips could no longer form words. My body was completely trapped once again inside a silent, unyielding cage.
Grace leaned down, her lips brushing my ear, echoing the exact words that had started this nightmare.
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"Die before Friday, Dominic," Grace whispered, her breath freezing the blood in my veins. "The money moves faster when you stop breathing... and my father's ghost finally gets his empire back."
She picked up her bag, unlocked the penthouse door, and walked out into the golden sunset, leaving me trapped inside my own motionless body as the digital clock on the wall slowly ticked toward midnight.
