Chapter 6 - The Broken Perimeter
By three in the morning, Lake Shore Drive looked like a war room.
Four of Luca’s senior lieutenants stood in the penthouse living room, their faces pale as Luca paced before the floor-to-ceiling windows, holding an unlit cigar between his white-knuckled fingers.
"His phone pinged off a tower near Kenosha twenty minutes ago," Marcus, the chief strategist, reported nervously. "He used a ghost protocol to wipe the estate’s main server before he left. Every camera feed from the Blackstone to the river has been corrupted."
"He spent eight years studying my security grid," Luca said, his voice terrifyingly quiet—the kind of quiet that presaged total destruction. "He didn't just plan an escape, Marcus. He built a trap."
Luca turned around, his dark eyes sweeping the room until every man lowered their gaze.
"Gabriel wasn't just working for me," Luca stated, realization dropping like heavy iron in his stomach. "He was draining my secondary accounts. He was buying up the debts of the Genoa shipping lines through shell companies. He’s been preparing to gut my entire operation from the inside."
"Why would he do that?" Marcus asked, bewildered. "You made him rich. You gave him total authority."
Luca walked over to his desk, picking up the small silver ring Amelia had left behind. He stared at it, the metal cold against his thumb.
"Because he didn't want the money," Luca whispered, his chest heaving with a deep, suppressed fury. "He wanted Amelia. And he spent eight years letting me build her cage so he could look like the savior when he unlocked it."
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He threw the cigar onto the marble floor and pulled a heavy tactical radio from his desk drawer.
"Get the cars," Luca ordered. "We’re going to Wisconsin."
