Chapter 10 - The Price of the Throne
The green progress bar on Sterling’s laptop ticked past twelve percent. The soft hum of the server fan in the corner of the office sounded like a clock running down in an empty room.
Casius stood motionless, the matte-black Beretta still gripped in his right hand. The distance between him and the elderly lawyer across the glass desk was barely six feet, but the legal trap Sterling had constructed was absolute. A bullet wouldn't stop the Zurich server from dumping four decades of syndicate indictments straight onto the desk of the federal prosecutor's office.
“You think a signature on a corporate transfer will save you, Sterling?” Casius’s voice was low, steady, and completely devoid of panic. “Even if you reach Geneva, the other four families aren't going to let you walk away with the keys to their territories. They’ll hunt you down before your plane touches the tarmac.”
Sterling offered a calm, unbothered smile, lifting his teacup once more. “Let me worry about Geneva, Don Leone. Your concern should be the sunrise vote. If the Commission wakes up tomorrow and finds out their legal immunity has evaporated, they won't just depose you—they’ll tear this estate to the ground to find whoever let the vault open.”
Nadia didn't look at Sterling. Her eyes were locked on the screen, watching the numbers climb: 18%... 19%... 20%...
She didn't reach for a weapon, and she didn't argue legal terms. Instead, she reached out and tapped the edge of the glass desk with her fingernail, drawing Sterling’s attention away from Casius.
“You calculated the encryption key based on your own heartbeat, didn't you, Mr. Sterling?” Nadia asked, her voice light, conversational, and entirely unnerving.
Sterling’s hand paused halfway to his mouth. The tea slopped slightly against the rim of the porcelain cup. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ve had a pacemaker since 2018,” Nadia continued, her eyes narrowing as she recalled a routine medical insurance audit she had filed for the estate’s legal counsel three years ago. “The remote sync device isn't in Geneva. It’s paired to the Bluetooth monitor sitting right inside your desk drawer, pulsing at seventy-two beats per minute.”
Sterling’s face went rigid. The paper-dry smile vanished completely.
Nadia didn't hesitate. She reached across the corner of the glass desk, pulled open the top oak drawer, and snatched a sleek, brushed-aluminum transceiver box, ripping the primary fiber-optic cable out of its port with a sharp snap.
CRACK.
The progress bar on the laptop screen instantly froze at 24%, flickered red, and died, replaced by a generic connection error prompt.
Sterling leaped out of his chair, his hands clawing toward the desk in blind panic. “You stupid—!”
Before he could take a step, Casius moved with terrifying speed. He holstered his pistol, lunged across the glass surface, grabbed Sterling by his silk tie, and hauled him half out of his seat, pinning him against the mahogany bookshelf.
“The dead man’s switch is dead, Sterling,” Casius whispered, his face inches from the terrified lawyer. “Now let’s talk about what you’re going to hand over before I let my enforcers handle your retirement.”
Ten minutes later, the encrypted thumb drive containing the complete ledger of Sterling’s shell companies and extortion files rested safely in Nadia’s palm. Sterling sat slumped in his chair, gasping for breath, while two Leone enforcers stood quietly by the elevator doors waiting to escort him to an underground holding facility beneath the estate.
The rain outside had slowed to a steady, quiet drizzle as Casius and Nadia rode the elevator back down to the ground floor. The air inside the car was warm, smelling of ozone and wet wool.
“You remembered his medical audit from three years ago,” Casius said, looking down at her with a gaze that held no trace of the cold syndicate boss he had been when they first met in the antique salon.
“I told you, Mr. Leone,” Nadia replied, slipping the thumb drive safely into her blazer pocket as the doors slid open to the night. “I’ve spent three years managing your schedules. I never forget a detail.”
May you like
They stepped out into the cool New York air, walking side-by-side toward the waiting armored SUV. The Rizzo alliance was broken, the Sterling extortion ring was dismantled, and the Commission was officially under a new, unshakeable administration.
Yet as Casius opened the passenger door for her, Nadia paused, looking back toward the glittering lights of the Manhattan skyline where the quiet, dormant offices of the rival families still waited in the dark. The core of the Leone empire was secure, but the final question of what the other four families would demand when they realized who truly held the keys to the city remained entirely unanswered.
