Chapter 14 - The Ultimatum
The sprawling Rossi estate felt colder and more isolated than ever before.
Harper was confined to the master suite, guarded not by the friendly faces she had grown accustomed to, but by silent, heavily armed strangers.
She paced the length of the luxurious bedroom, her mind spinning with the horrifying reality of her bloodline.
Down in the subterranean war room, Vincent stood over a massive marble table covered in tactical maps of the city.
The heavy steel doors swung open, and Elias walked in, holding a ringing, untraceable satellite phone.
He handed the device to Vincent without a word, his scarred face tight with anxiety.
Vincent pressed the phone to his ear and listened to the smooth, aristocratic voice of Eleanor Vance echoing from the other end.
Eleanor did not bother with pleasantries or maternal concern.
She calmly congratulated Vincent on successfully exterminating Don Marcano, noting that he had done all the heavy lifting for her.
She officially demanded that Vincent surrender all of his lucrative shipping ports and international weapon smuggling routes by midnight.
If he refused, she promised to release a digital archive of evidence to the federal government that would put Vincent in a supermax prison for the rest of his natural life.
Vincent gripped the phone so tightly the plastic casing began to creak.
He told the ghost of the underworld that she had made a fatal error by leaving her daughter locked inside his cage.
He threatened to put a bullet through Harper's head if Eleanor did not back down immediately.
Eleanor simply laughed, a cold, hollow sound that chilled Vincent to his very core.
She told him to go ahead and kill the girl if he truly had the stomach for it.
She revealed cruelly that Harper was nothing more than a strategic pawn she had bred specifically for this exact war.
Before hanging up, Eleanor drove one final, poisonous dagger into Vincent's chest.
She casually mentioned that Harper had already seen the text message on Marcano's phone before Vincent smashed it, yet she had chosen to protect her mother's secret.
The line went completely dead.
Vincent stood perfectly still in the silent war room, the betrayal burning through his veins like battery acid.
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He threw the satellite phone against the concrete wall, shattering it into a hundred pieces.
He looked at Elias with murder in his eyes and ordered him to unlock the master suite.
