Chapter 6 - Ashes and Admissions
Karen recovered her composure faster than Stephen, her lips curling into a cold, venomous sneer as she adjusted the collar of her expensive coat. She didn't look like a cornered criminal; she looked like a CEO conducting a hostile takeover.
"You think you've won something, don't you, little girl?" Karen laughed, a dry, humorless sound that echoed off the high ceilings. "Your mother was a sentimental fool who thought ethics could outmaneuver capital. We bought Doyle Meridian fair and square after her unfortunate... accident. And Stephen was the perfect little insurance policy to keep you docile, compliant, and completely unaware of your own heritage."
"You killed her," I said, the words dragging up from the deepest recesses of my soul. "You cut the brake lines on her car three days after she filed the audit report."
"Prove it," Karen challenged, taking a step toward the fireplace where the remaining pages of the ledger were still smoking. "The evidence is turning to ash right now. Without the physical audit logs, your word against mine in a corporate court means nothing. Romano can't touch us without a paper trail."
She thought she was safe. She thought the fire would consume the final piece of the puzzle. But Karen didn't know Dante Romano, and she certainly didn't know how deep Dante's intelligence network reached into the financial underworld.
"Vincenzo Romano kept copies of everything Karen," Dante said smoothly, stepping into the center of the room and tossing a heavy encrypted flash drive onto the coffee table right in front of her. "Including the wire transfers from your husband's firm to the mechanic who serviced Elena Doyle's car twenty years ago. The original hard copies were digitized a week before your mentor passed away."
Karen’s face drained of every drop of color. The pristine, untouchable executive mask finally shattered completely, revealing the desperate, cornered criminal underneath. She lunged forward toward the coffee table, desperate to grab the flash drive, but Marcus intercepted her with effortless speed, pinning her wrists behind her back with a sharp click of steel handcuffs.
"Get your hands off me!" Karen shrieked, thrashing against Marcus's iron grip. "You can't do this! I am Doyle Meridian! I am the board!"
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Stephen, realizing the game was entirely lost, made a desperate lunge for the side door leading to the garage. But he didn't even make it three steps before Dante moved with terrifying speed, intercepting him with a devastating sweep of his leg that sent Stephen crashing hard into the glass coffee table, shattering it into a thousand glittering pieces.
As Stephen groaned in pain on the floor, surrounded by broken glass and shattered illusions, Dante stood over him, his dark eyes devoid of any mercy. "Never touch what doesn't belong to you," Dante said quietly. "And never, ever lay a hand on someone under my protection."
