Chapter 7 - The Father's BetrayalThe freezing Swiss wind howled around us, but I couldn't feel the cold. My entire body burned with a white-hot, blinding rage.
"You faked your death," I said, my voice dangerously low as I raised my pistol, locking my sights squarely on my father’s chest. "You left Mom and me to starve in Cicero, drowning in medical bills, while you lived like a king on stolen blood money."
Thomas Carter chuckled, taking a slow sip from his martini glass. He didn't look like a terrified fugitive; he looked like a chess grandmaster who had anticipated every single move on the board.
"Starve? Please, Avery," Thomas sneered, waving a dismissive hand at the sprawling Swiss mansion behind him. "Do you have any idea how suffocating a middle-class life is? The bills, the debt, the endless mediocrity. Dominic’s syndicate was a goldmine waiting to be drained. I didn't steal from criminals—I liberated Cicero's finest investment fund."
"You traded men's lives to the FBI," Dominic spoke up, stepping forward beside me, his hand resting casually near his holster. "And then you tried to blow us out of the sky over the Atlantic."
"That was just good business, Dominic," Thomas smiled coldly. He snapped his fingers, and four more mercenaries stepped out from the shadows, dragging a frail, terrified figure between them.
My breath caught in my throat.
It was Mom. Linda Carter.
She was wrapped in a woolen blanket, pale and trembling, with a heavy steel collar locked around her neck connected to a remote detonator held by one of the guards.
"Mom!" I screamed, taking a desperate step forward.
"Ah, ah, ah, sweetie," Thomas warned, raising a finger. "One wrong twitch, and your mother’s head becomes abstract art across the snow. You see, I knew Dominic would eventually track me down. So I had a few federal friends in Chicago intercept Linda from her hospital room before you two boarded that doomed jet."
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Dominic’s eyes narrowed into slits of pure malice. "You underestimate me, Thomas. You think a few mercenaries and a bomb will stop a Moretti?"
"No, Dominic," Thomas said, his smile vanishing as his expression turned ice-cold. "I expect you to hand over the digital ledger codes to your entire offshore network right now, or I watch my own daughter choose between her mother's life and her new mafia master."
