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SHE SPENT 10 YEARS HIDING HER BEAUTY IN PLAIN CLOTHES—UNTIL THE MAFIA BOSS COULDN'T LOOK AWAY / Chapter 7 / 8

Chapter 7 - THE FINAL CHECKMATEBy sunrise, the siege was over. Valerio’s assault team had been entirely neutralized, but the message was clear: Valerio was desperate, and a desperate rat would burn the entire city down to win.

In the command room, Lorenzo was bandaging his shoulder while examining the decrypted files recovered from Reeves' phone.

"He's fleeing the country," Lorenzo said, staring at the screen. "A private jet is waiting for him at a private airstrip in Gary, Indiana, in two hours. He’s taking his entire liquid fortune with him."

"No," Ariana said, stepping up to the tactical table. "He isn't just fleeing. Look at these wire transfers." She pointed a long finger at the scrolling lines of code. "He’s transferring his entire empire’s treasury into a blind Swiss trust. But he’s using the old Moretti routing protocol."

Lorenzo looked up at her, intrigued. "The same protocol you broke ten years ago?"

"The very same," Ariana smiled, a cold, predatory gleam in her eyes. "He never updated the encryption because he assumed I was dead and no one else knew how to crack it. Give me ten minutes at a terminal."

For eight minutes, the only sound in the room was the rapid clack of Ariana’s fingers flying across the keyboard. Lorenzo watched her in awe—the quiet, boring analyst had transformed into a master strategist, dissecting a multi-billion-dollar criminal enterprise with mathematical brilliance.

"Done," Ariana declared, pressing Enter with a satisfying click.

"What did you do?" Lorenzo asked.

"I didn't just steal his money this time," she laughed softly. "I redirected his entire liquidity pool—1.2 billion dollars—into the Duca Holdings public acquisition account. And I routed the tax fraud evidence directly to the Interpol regional hub in Chicago."

Lorenzo stared at the screen as the balance confirmed: $1,200,000,000 TRANSFERRED.

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The sterile silence of the Moretti estate’s private chapel was shattered not by a prayer, but by the frantic, echoing ring of a burner phone. Lorenzo Moretti stood frozen in the dim candlelight, the heavy bronze key still cool and damning in his palm. Beside him, Sophia Hale clutched her trembling daughter, Lily,

The sterile silence of the Moretti estate’s private chapel was shattered...

The silence in the grand foyer was so absolute that the single drop of red wine spilling from the stepmother’s fingers sounded like a gunshot. Clink. The crystal stemware slipped from Elena’s manicured hand, shattering against the imported Italian marble tiles, staining the pristine white stone the color of fresh blood.

The silence in the grand foyer was so absolute that the single drop of r...

HE TRUSTED HIM WITH HIS LIFE—UNTIL A 3ARIA-YEAR-OLD’S CRAYON DRAWING EXPOSED THE DEADLIEST TRAITOR IN THE UNDERWORLD! (THE ENDING WILL SHOCK YOU!)

HE TRUSTED HIM WITH HIS LIFE—UNTIL A 3ARIA-YEAR-OLD’S CRAYON DRAWING EXP...

"You just bankrupt the entire Sicilian syndicate," Lorenzo said, a breathless chuckle escaping his lips.

"Now," Ariana said, grabbing her jacket, "let's go watch him realize it."

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