Chapter 7 - The Greenwich Purge
By 2:00 PM, the storm had shifted north toward Connecticut.
In the affluent enclave of Greenwich, an hour outside New York City, sat a sprawling twelve-acre estate belonging to Victor Rourke.
Victor—a sixty-two-year-old man with sharp gray eyes, silver hair, and a ruthless ambition that had alienated him from the rest of the Rourke family—sat in his glass-walled conservatory, sipping espresso and reading the Wall Street Journal.
His private phone rang on the glass table.
Victor picked it up. "Is it done, Adrian? Did you double the dose?"
There was a brief pause on the line. Then a voice answered—a voice that made Victor’s blood run instantly cold.
"Adrian is indisposed, Uncle Victor."
Victor stood up so fast he knocked his espresso cup to the floor, the dark liquid splashing across the pristine white marble. "Vincent?"
"I’m outside your gates, Victor," Vincent said smoothly over the phone. "You should tell your security team to drop their weapons. It would be a shame to stain your lovely lawn."
Victor looked out the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of the conservatory.
Four heavy black SUVs had smashed straight through the wrought-iron front gates, grinding across the manicured grass. Dozens of armed men in dark coats poured out, surrounding the mansion within seconds. Victor's private security guards had already thrown their weapons onto the gravel driveway, their hands raised high in the air.
Victor’s hand shook as he held the phone to his ear. "Vincent... listen to me... whatever Bell told you, he’s lying! He’s trying to cover his own embezzlement!"
"Save it, Victor," Vincent said.
The glass doors of the conservatory shattered inward as Dominic kicked them open, leading four men with automatic rifles into the room.
Vincent walked calmly through the broken glass, stepping into the warm conservatory. He was wearing his black overcoat, looking like an executioner who had arrived to collect an overdue debt.
Victor stumbled back against his mahogany desk, his face pale with terror. "Vincent... we're blood! I'm your father's brother!"
"My father would have killed you himself if he were alive today," Vincent said, stepping closer. "You tried to destroy my son. You tried to erase Noah so you could sit in my chair."
"I kept him alive!" Victor shrieked, his voice breaking. "I could have told Bell to kill him! I gave him a life!"
"You trapped him in a silent hell for four years!" Vincent roared, grabbing Victor by the lapels of his silk suit and slamming him violently against the marble wall. The glass framed pictures on the wall crashed to the floor.
Vincent reached into his coat and pulled out a single sheet of paper—a full transfer of all Victor's stock shares, assets, and properties to a blind trust set up solely in Noah Rourke's name.
"Sign it," Vincent whispered into his uncle's ear.
"And if I don't?" Victor choked out, tears of fear rolling down his wrinkled cheeks.
Vincent leaned in closer, his voice dropping into a deadly whisper. "If you don't sign it, I won't kill you, Victor. I’ll give you to Dr. Harrison. And I’ll make sure you spend the next twenty years taking those blue pills every single morning until you forget your own name."
Victor stared into his nephew's eyes and saw no mercy. None at all.
With trembling fingers, Victor grabbed the pen from Vincent’s hand and signed his name at the bottom of the page, surrendering everything he owned in this world.
Vincent snatched the paper back, checked the signature, and handed it to Dominic.
"What... what happens to me now?" Victor whimpered, slumped against the wall.
May you like
Vincent turned his back on his uncle, walking toward the shattered glass doors.
"You're going to a quiet house in northern Maine, Victor," Vincent said without looking back. "No phones. No visitors. No money. You’ll live out the rest of your miserable life wondering if today is the day I decide to finish this."
