The heavy iron door clicked shut behind Dr. Vance, echoing through the vaulted corridor like a falling gavel. Lorenzo didn’t look up from his desk. He already knew the verdict before the man spoke. He knew it by the way Vance’s loafers dragged against the imported Persian rug, and by the tight, sterile smell of hand sanitizer the physician carried with him like a shroud.

"L-Lucas?" Marcus stammered, his eyes darting frantically from the boy to the bound physician, and finally to Lorenzo, who was slowly closing the heavy oak door behind him. "I... I thought... Dr. Vance said the boy was beyond saving..."

"Dr. Vance was mistaken," Lorenzo said, his voice dropping into that quiet, terrifying register that preceded absolute violence. He walked slowly toward the center of the room, picking up the leather portfolio from the floor. He flipped it open, scanning the neatly typed pages of asset transfers, offshore accounts, and corporate liquidations.

"You drafted these yourself, didn't you, Marcus?" Lorenzo asked, flipping a page. "Every single signature required to strip my family name from every corporation on the East Coast. You even included a clause for the Duca estate itself."

Marcus swallowed hard, his face turning the color of ash. He took a slow step backward toward the door, only to find Sal blocking the exit, his hand resting firmly on the grip of a silenced pistol.

"Lorenzo, let’s be reasonable," Marcus pleaded, his professional veneer completely dissolving into raw panic. "We’re partners! We built this syndicate together! You can't—"

"Partners?" Lorenzo interrupted, his slate-gray eyes locking onto Marcus with the intensity of a laser. "You poisoned my son. You used a hired hack to feed him micro-doses of neurotoxin day in and day out, turning my own home into a gas chamber, all so you could carve up my empire like a carcass."

"He didn't know!" Dr. Vance sobbed from the chair, rocking back and forth in terror. "Marcus gave me the compounds! He threatened to kill my daughter if I didn't administer them!"

"Shut up, you idiot!" Marcus screamed, lunging forward in a desperate attempt to reach the door.

He didn't make it two steps.

Sal’s heavy hand shot out, grabbing Marcus by the collar and slamming him face-first against the mahogany desk with a sickening thud. The legal portfolio scattered across the floor, white papers fluttering through the air like dying birds.

Lorenzo walked over, picked up a single sheet of the transfer agreement, and let it drop onto the unconscious or semi-conscious heap of his lawyer.

"Sal," Lorenzo said quietly.

"Boss?"

"Take Marcus and the good doctor down to the basement. Have the cleaning crew prep the industrial incinerator. Make sure they understand that some contracts can never be broken."