Chapter 4 - THE CHEN FAMILY WAR
At 7:00 AM, the storm clouds began to break over the city, revealing a pale, icy blue sky.
Inside the dark, stone wine cellar beneath the estate, Vivian Chen was tied to a thick concrete pillar with heavy industrial chains. Her pristine white nurse uniform was stained with dust and sweat. Her hair hung in tangled strands over her bruised face.
Standing six feet away from her was Lorenzo Duca, flanked by Daniel and two armed enforcers.
Dr. Mara Quinn walked down the stone stairs, holding a tablet screen displaying real-time bio-data from Lucas’s room upstairs.
“His fever is starting to break,” Mara reported, a rare smile touching her lips. “The Prussian blue is binding to the thallium. His heart rate has stabilized at eighty beats per minute for the first time in two years.”
Lorenzo let out a long, quiet breath. The tight knot in his shoulders loosened slightly.
He turned his gaze toward Vivian.
“You heard that, Vivian?” Lorenzo said coldly. “My son is recovering. Which means your leverage is gone. Now you have one choice left: tell me how David Chen planned to use Lucas’s death, or I turn you over to Daniel.”
Vivian lifted her head, her dark eyes filled with a mixture of hatred and terror. She knew Daniel’s reputation. Daniel was the man who made people disappear into deep ocean trenches.
“You think... you think you’ve won, Lorenzo?” Vivian spat, blood staining her white teeth. “My uncle David already knows! The moment I didn't send my morning confirmation code at 6:00 AM, he knew I was compromised!”
Lorenzo didn't look surprised. He casually pulled a satellite phone from his pocket.
“I know,” Lorenzo said. “That’s why I had my men surround David Chen’s estate in Long Island three hours ago.”
Vivian froze. “What?”
“David Chen thought he was playing a long game,” Lorenzo said, stepping closer to her. “He wanted Lucas dead so I would be consumed by grief. Then he planned to launch a hostile takeover of my shipping routes in the North Harbor while I was burying my son.”
Lorenzo tapped a button on the phone and held it up to Vivian’s ear on speakerphone.
A loud, frantic voice echoed through the speaker:
“Lorenzo! Lorenzo, please! We are family! We have trade agreements!” It was the voice of David Chen, the patriarch of the Chen crime syndicate.
“David,” Lorenzo spoke into the phone smoothly. “You have five minutes to sign over all your commercial real estate and shipping docks in New York to the Duca Enterprise. If you refuse, my men outside your gates will enter your home.”
“You can’t do this!” David Chen shrieked over the phone. “The Syndicate Commission will destroy you! There are rules!”
“You poisoned my six-year-old son, David,” Lorenzo said, his voice dropping into a register that made even the guards in the cellar shiver. “The Commission has already given me full authorization to wipe your bloodline from the map.”
A long, agonizing silence hung over the phone line.
“I’ll sign...” David Chen sobbed brokenly. “I’ll sign everything... just spare my grandchildren...”
“Send the digital deeds to my lawyer,” Lorenzo said, and hung up.
He put the phone back in his pocket and looked down at Vivian.
“Your family is ruined, Vivian,” Lorenzo said coldly. “You will spend the rest of your life in a maximum-security federal facility under alias charges of attempted murder and terrorism. You will never see the sun again.”
“Lorenzo, please!” Vivian shrieked as Daniel stepped forward with a black velvet hood. “Please! I was just following orders! My uncle forced me! LORENZO!”
The black hood was pulled over her head, cutting off her screams.
May you like
Lorenzo turned his back on her and walked up the stone staircase, stepping back into the warm, sunlit halls of his home.
For the first time in three years, the dark, suffocating shadow over the Duca estate had finally begun to lift.
