Chapter 16 - The Final RatWith the family secured in the reinforced command bunker beneath the estate's old wine cellar, I left Luca in charge of holding the line and marched straight down to the lower vault.
The heavy iron doors were slightly ajar.
Inside, seated on a steel folding chair with a smug, bloodied grin on his face, was Dominic.
The guards I had left to watch him were unconscious on the floor, drugged by a gas canister that had been pumped through the ventilation shaft.
"Impressive show upstairs, big brother," Dominic chuckled, wiping a smear of blood from his lip as he stood up. "Did you really think locking me in a cage would stop the syndicate council? The Ghost Squad was programmed to extract me the moment communications went dark."
I didn't answer. I slowly walked toward him, my footsteps echoing off the stone walls like the ticking of a doomsday clock.
Dominic reached into his jacket, pulling out a small, encrypted detonator. "One push of this button, and every explosive charge planted beneath this estate—including the one right outside your panic room—goes off. We all burn together, Dante."
I stopped five feet away from him. I didn't look at the detonator. I looked straight into his panicked, desperate eyes.
"You always were a coward, Dominic," I said softly. "You thought you could inherit an empire built on loyalty by using betrayal."
"I am the empire!" Dominic screamed, his finger hovering over the trigger button.
"No," a cold, calm voice echoed from the shadows behind him. "You're just a dead man walking."
Before Dominic could press the button, Luca stepped out from the dark corner of the vault, raising a heavy-caliber revolver and firing a single, precise shot straight through Dominic's right wrist.
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The detonator dropped from Dominic's shattered hand, clattering harmlessly onto the stone floor.
Dominic shrieked, clutching his bleeding wrist as he fell to his knees for the second time in three months.
