Chapter 1 - The Second Wish
I stared at Dante with absolute authority burning in my cold eyes.
The tension in the lavish dining room was thick enough to slice with a combat knife.
Dante slowly raised his hands in a mocking gesture of complete surrender.
He told me that I was heavily overreacting to the senseless babbling of a foolish child.
I did not break eye contact with my younger brother for a single second.
I slid the second gold coin across the polished marble table toward the little girl.
I asked Ellie gently what her second wish would be on this special night.
Clara reached out frantically to grab her daughter, her face completely pale with sheer terror.
She begged me to let them leave the estate and never return.
I ignored the mother and kept my focus entirely on the brave child.
Ellie looked at the shiny gold coin and then pointed a small finger directly at Dante.
She stated clearly that she wished the bad man would stop looking for her daddy's hidden book.
The entire dining room went completely and utterly silent.
Dante's mocking smile instantly vanished from his handsome face.
His eyes filled with a murderous rage that I had never seen in him before.
He quickly reached into his tailored suit jacket and pulled out a silver pistol.
He aimed the deadly weapon directly at the innocent three-year-old girl.
Before his finger could even squeeze the trigger, my loyal guards tackled him violently.
They slammed my brother hard onto the expensive marble floor.
I stood up slowly and kicked the gun far away from his reaching hand.
I looked down at the trembling maid and demanded to know what she was hiding in my house.
Clara pulled Ellie tightly against her chest and began to sob uncontrollably.
She confessed that she was not just a simple maid looking for honest work in New York.
She revealed that her real last name was not Romano, but Rossi.
She was the desperate widow of the rival Chicago mafia boss who was brutally murdered last year.
I stared at her in absolute shock as the dangerous truth finally clicked into place.
Dante had killed her husband to steal a ledger containing all the syndicate's financial secrets.
Clara had hidden in my home because it was the only place Dante could not easily search.
I turned back to my brother, realizing the depth of his horrific betrayal.
I ordered my guards to drag Dante down to the underground holding cells immediately.
Before my men could even move, the heavy oak doors of my dining room violently burst open.
Dozens of heavily armed men marched aggressively into the elegant room.
I quickly realized that these men were not my personal security detail.
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They were Dante's secret loyalists, and they had just completely hijacked my entire estate.
The lead gunman raised an assault rifle and pointed it directly at my chest.
