Chapter 7 - THE CLEANING OF THE EMPIRE
I didn't pull the trigger.
Execution was too clean, too fast for a man who had stolen fourteen months of my daughters' childhood and murdered their mother.
"Marco," I said, lowering my pistol.
"Sir?"
"Take him to the basement at the warehouse in Newark. Keep him alive until he signs over every offshore account, every property, and every asset he owns to the Russo Foundation for Traumatized Children."
Julian’s eyes widened in horror. "Dominic! No! Kill me! Shoot me, you coward!"
"And after he signs," I continued, ignoring his screams, "hand him over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation alongside the complete encryption logs of his dealings with the Mendoza cartel. Let him spend the next forty years in a maximum-security prison, listening to the walls."
"NO! DOMINIC! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!" Julian shrieked as two of my largest guards grabbed him by his arms and dragged him across the wet concrete, leaving a smear of red blood on the asphalt.
By three o'clock in the morning, the purge was complete.
Within four hours, my men swept through every division of Russo Enterprises, arresting seven traitorous managers, securing every server, and liquidating thirty illegal accounts tied to Julian’s network. The Mendoza cartel’s remaining international contacts were exposed to federal law enforcement, triggering raids across three continents.
The shadow that had hung over my family for fourteen months was finally ripped away, exposing the rot to the bright, cleansing light of truth.
I sat in the back of my Suburban as we drove back toward Long Island, the rain finally subsiding as the first faint rays of pink dawn broke over the horizon.
I looked down at my hands. They were clean.
For the first time in fifteen years, I didn't feel the burning need for blood. I felt a quiet, profound stillness—a sense of duty fulfilled not as a mafia boss, but as a father.
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When the SUV pulled through the iron gates of the Long Island estate, the morning sun was reflecting off the wet manicured lawn, turning the estate into a shining beacon of gold.
I stepped out of the vehicle, took a deep breath of the fresh morning air, and walked through the front doors.
