Chapter 7 - THE EUROPEAN ALLIANCE
Knox stood frozen in the center of the cathedral, surrounded on all sides by elite Vance enforcers. His eight tactical guards surrendered their weapons immediately, dropping their rifles onto the stone floor with heavy metallic clatters.
“Carlo... listen to me,” Knox stammered, his confident posture collapsing into absolute panic. “We had an agreement! The Whitmore territory in New York was supposed to be divided between Vance and my council once Ethan was eliminated!”
Don Carlo walked slowly down the altar steps, stopping next to Ethan. He looked at Ethan with an intense, searching expression before turning his gaze back to Knox.
“You lied to me, Knox,” Don Carlo said quietly in his deep Italian accent. “Nineteen years ago, you told me my sister—Ethan’s mother, Eleanor—died in an explosion orchestrated by the Whitmore family. You used her fake death to ignite a twenty-year war between our families while you quietly siphoned hundreds of millions off our supply lines.”
Ethan turned his head slightly, looking at Don Carlo with sharp, newly recontextualized realization.
Don Carlo Vance was his mother’s brother.
He was Ethan’s uncle.
“The House of Vance does not make deals with rats who betray their own blood,” Don Carlo added coldly.
Don Carlo made a subtle hand gesture. Two Vance enforcers stepped forward, grabbed Knox by his arms, and forced him down onto his knees in the middle of the aisle.
Knox looked up at Ethan, his eyes wide with desperate, pathetic pleading. “Ethan! Please! I raised you after your father died! I taught you how to run the family! I protected you!”
Ethan walked down the steps until he stood directly over the man who had lied to him for two decades.
“You didn't raise me, Knox,” Ethan said, his voice devoid of all emotion. “You trained a guard dog to protect your loot. And when the guard dog started asking questions, you tried to put it down.”
Ethan pulled the silver-plated key from his pocket and tossed it onto the stone floor in front of Knox.
“The vault beneath this church doesn't contain money, Knox,” Ethan revealed softly. “I had my team sweep it an hour ago. It contains thirty years of audio recordings detailing every bribe, every murder, and every treasonous deal you made behind my father’s back.”
Knox gasped, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly.
“Take him to the basement,” Ethan ordered the Vance guards. “Make sure he stays alive long enough to sign over every account he stole from my family.”
The guards dragged Knox away, his desperate screams echoing down the dark corridors of the cathedral until a heavy iron door slammed shut, cutting off the sound completely.
Ethan turned to face his uncle, Don Carlo Vance.
The elder mafia don looked at Ethan, a faint, proud smile touching his lips. “You have your mother’s eyes, Ethan. Cold when you are planning, but fierce when you protect your own.”
“Where is she, Carlo?” Ethan asked, his voice trembling slightly for the first time in days. “Tell me where my mother is.”
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Don Carlo reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a small leather-bound itinerary.
“She is at my private estate in Lugano, Switzerland,” Don Carlo said warmly. “She has been waiting nineteen years for her son to come home.”
