Chapter 18 - Fall of the Architect
At 3:00 AM, the Miller Estate in East Hampton looked like an impenetrable fortress. High stone walls, perimeter laser sensors, and heavily armed guards patrolled the manicured lawns.
Inside the grand conservatory, Silas Miller sat in a velvet armchair, sipping fifty-year-old cognac, watching the master financial transfer tick up to ninety-eight percent complete on a massive wall monitor.
"To modern efficiency," Silas toasted to his private security chief. "No more Morettis. No more soft-hearted Millers."
Suddenly, the lights across the entire twenty-acre estate died.
Before the backup generators could kick in, three flashbang grenades shattered the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of the conservatory, exploding in blinding white light and deafening sound.
Nico and I moved through the smoke like ghosts, executing Silas’s personal security detail with surgical precision. Red laser sights danced through the fog as gunfire echoed through the high-ceilinged mansion.
Silas dropped his glass, pulling a snub-nosed revolver from his desk, scrambling frantically toward the reinforced panic room behind the fireplace.
He jammed his thumb onto the biometric scanner.
ACCESS DENIED, the machine chimed coldly.
Silas froze, spinning around in terror.
Through the clearing smoke, Grace stepped forward, holding a silent shotgun leveled directly at his chest. Beside her stood Dominic Moretti, bruised, bloody, but entirely unkillable.
"Grace..." Silas stuttered, dropping to his knees, his hands flying up in desperation. "Grace, listen to me! I did it for the family! I did it to unite the empires under the Miller name!"
"You killed my father," Grace said, her voice steady and devoid of all emotion. "You made me a monster."
May you like
"I can give you billions!" Silas shrieked. "Half the world's trade runs through those accounts!"
Grace didn't hesitate. She pulled the trigger.
