Chapter 16 - THE TRUTH AT THE WATER'S EDGEThe struggle on the concrete floor was brutal. Victor fought like a cornered animal, slashing wildly with his silver blade. I dodged his first strike, but the second slice carved a deep gash across my left forearm.
Blood soaked through my sleeve, but the pain was drowned out by adrenaline. I grabbed Victor’s wrist and slammed it against a nearby steel beam until the knife clattered onto the floor.
"You will never touch my family again!" I roared, wrestling the revolver from his grip and pressing it hard against his chest.
Victor lay pinned beneath me, gasping for air, blood pouring from his nose. Yet instead of pleading for his life, he let out a rasping, bitter laugh.
"Do it, Daniel," he wheezed. "Pull the trigger... become a killer just like our father... just like me."
My finger trembled over the trigger guard. I looked up and met Grace’s eyes across the room. Marcus had already cut her restraints. She looked back at me not with fear, but with a silent plea: "Don't do it, Daniel. Don't let him turn you into what he is."
I let out a long, shuddering breath and slowly lowered the gun.
"I'm not killing you, Victor," I said coldly. "You're going to spend the rest of your miserable life in a supermax facility. That’s your real punishment."
FBI agents swarmed forward, dragging Victor away in heavy restraints.
As the dust began to settle, Special Agent Miller stepped up beside me, his expression uncharacteristically grave.
"Daniel, we have a major problem," Miller said quietly.
"What now?" I asked, pressing a cloth to my bleeding arm.
"Our cyber unit just finished decrypting the hidden partition on Grace’s micro-SD card," Miller handed me a secure tablet. "It doesn't just contain financial records for Kane or Victor. It houses a master registry for an international shadow syndicate known as The Crown. And your father's name is at the top of the founding council."
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I froze. "What?"
"Your father wasn't a victim of organized crime, Daniel," Miller looked at me directly. "He built The Crown’s domestic network. Your entire family fortune... was built on the backs of thousands of victims."
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