Chapter 6 - WHISPERS IN THE EAST WINGThe ink on the federal seizure warrants was barely dry when the first structural cracks in Costello Global began to show from an entirely unexpected direction.
With Marcus Vance behind bars and the board of directors in absolute disarray, the vultures of the underground syndicates circling Chicago smelled blood in the water. They didn't care that Luca Costello had walked out of his wheelchair; they believed twelve years of physical atrophy had left him soft, slow, and mathematically vulnerable.
At midnight, deep in the subterranean data-vault beneath the East Wing, Luca stood before a bank of illuminated monitors. The blue light washed over his sharp cheekbones, highlighting the scars of a war he thought he had finished.
"They're moving on the port terminals, boss," whispered Jax, Luca’s most loyal field commander, stepping out of the shadows with a encrypted tactical tablet in hand. "The Bratva and the Syndicate have formed a coalition. They’re pooling resources to blockade dock sector four by Friday morning. If they choke off our cargo lines, the whole supply chain collapses before the stock market opens."
Luca didn't blink. He reached out and tapped a single icon on the glass screen, pulling up a schematic of the harbor.
"Let them move," Luca said, his voice cold and flat. "They think I'm still the man who managed a war from a leather armchair. They think my legs are the only thing that was paralyzed."
"What’s the play, Luca?" Jax asked, his eyes narrowing with lethal anticipation. "Do we hit their stash houses tonight?"
"No," Luca replied, turning away from the screens with a slow, calculating smile. "We let them walk right into the trap. Marcus left behind a digital backdoor in the shipping software. Route all incoming contraband directly into federal impound while making it look like a syndicate leak. Let the feds do the heavy lifting while we cut off their financial oxygen."
Jax grinned, a grim, bloodthirsty expression. "Consider it done. And... what about Elena and the kid?"
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Luca’s expression instantly softened, the ice in his eyes melting away. "Double the detail around the East Wing perimeter. No one gets within five hundred yards of that hedge without my explicit authorization."
As Jax slipped back into the shadows, Luca turned his gaze toward the frost-covered window overlooking the back lawn. Deep in the dark, silent snow, the gap in the privet hedge stood like an open door waiting for morning.
