2Two barefoot little girls pushing a rusted shopping cart nearly brought me to my knees in downtown Los Angeles.

Julian’s throat bobbed. He tried to muster his trademark corporate charisma, but his voice cracked. "Dante, you’re having an episode. You need medical attention. Security, escort Mr. Moretti and these officers out—"

"Your security is dead, Julian," I said, my voice echoing off the glass. "Marcus Kane died on the floor of my conservatory at 3:15 this morning. His body is currently at the county morgue, along with the encrypted phones you used to hire his squad."

The color left Julian's eyes entirely. "I... I don't know what you're talking about—"

"Agent Miller, if you please," I said without looking away from Julian’s face.

Agent Miller stepped forward, dropping a thick stack of binders and hard drives onto the mahogany table with a heavy thud.

"Julian Vance," Miller announced, his voice booming through the room. "At 6:00 AM this morning, federal judges signed sixteen federal arrest warrants for you and eight members of your executive staff. Charges include racketeering, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, human trafficking through Port of Los Angeles Terminals 4 and 6, attempted capital murder, and two counts of first-degree contract murder."

Gasping erupted around the table. Several board members pushed their chairs back and stood up, moving as far away from Julian as the room allowed.

"This is absurd!" Julian screamed, sweat pouring down his temples, soaking his stiff collar. "This is a vendetta! Dante is insane! He has no proof! None!"

"We don't need proof from your servers, Julian," I said, leaning forward until my face was inches from his. "We have Elena."

Julian staggered back as if I had struck him with a hammer. "Elena... Elena is dead. The fire—"

He clamped his mouth shut, realizing too late what he had just admitted.

The U.S. Attorney stepped up, holding a tablet. "Thank you for the confession on federal record, Mr. Vance. Furthermore, Elena gave a four-hour recorded deposition under sworn oath to federal prosecutors before she passed away early this morning. We also have the testimony of the attending physician who forged Clara’s delivery records in Barstow six years ago. He was arrested two hours ago in San Diego trying to board a private flight to Costa Rica."

Julian’s chest heaved. The polished, untouchable corporate titan was crumbling before the eyes of the city’s elite.

"Dante..." Julian whimpered, his hands trembling as he reached toward me. "Dante, listen to me... it wasn't supposed to happen like this. The money... the foreign buyers... they were going to squeeze us out! I did it to protect Moretti Logistics! I took Marie so you wouldn't get in their way! I kept her safe!"

"You kept her in the gutter!" I roared, the rage of six years tearing out of my chest, shattering the calm facade.

I grabbed Julian by the silk lapels of his suit and slammed him against the floor-to-ceiling glass window behind him. The reinforced pane groaned under the impact.

Below us, two thousand feet down, the morning traffic crawled through the streets.

"You forced my daughters to push garbage through Skid Row for forty cents a day!" I snarled into his ear, my fingers digging into his collar until his airway closed. "You let Clara die thinking her baby was drowned in the ocean! You stole six years of their lives!"

"Dante, don't!" Agent Miller shouted, raising a hand to stop the agents from drawing on me. "Let the law take him! ADX Florence will bury him alive!"

Julian clawed at my wrists, his eyes bulging, his tongue turning blue. He looked down through the glass at the terrifying drop beneath him, pure, unadulterated terror twisting his features.

"Kill me..." he choked out. "Do it... kill me, Dante..."

I stared into his bulging, pathetic eyes.

Every instinct in my Sicilian blood screamed at me to shatter the glass and throw him into the abyss. To watch him fall the way he had let my family fall.

Then, I felt something in my pocket.

My fingers brushed against the greasy, torn piece of fast-food napkin Lily had given me to stop the bleeding on my palm.

*It will stop the hurt.*

If I killed Julian here, I became the monster he wanted me to be. I would spend the rest of my life in a courtroom, away from my children. Julian had stolen six years; he wasn't stealing one more second of their future.

I pulled Julian away from the glass and hurled him violently onto the floor at the feet of the federal agents.

"Get him out of my sight," I said, wiping my hands with a linen handkerchief. "Strip him of every asset, every bank account, every cent. Let him rot in a six-by-eight concrete cage where he will never see the sun again."

Two FBI agents hauled Julian to his feet, slapping heavy steel handcuffs onto his wrists. As they dragged him toward the door, Julian began to weep like a broken child, his polished world destroyed forever.

I turned back to the remaining board members. They were staring at me in terrified awe.

"Gentlemen," I said calmly, adjusting my cufflinks. "The emergency meeting is adjourned. Moretti Logistics is withdrawing entirely from commercial freight at the ports to fund the Clara Moretti Foundation for Exploited Children. If any of you object, my legal team will accept your resignations by noon."

Without waiting for an answer, I walked out of the room, leaving the empire behind.