Chapter 5 - The Desperate Trap
Driven into a corner by financial ruin and family pressure, Vincent refused to sign the custody surrender.
"If she wants a war, I'll give her a war!" Vincent raged in his office later that night, slamming his glass against the wall. "She thinks she can use money to destroy the Caruso family? We run this city's streets!"
"Vincent, calm down!" his brother Dominic warned. "She has federal marshals protecting her! You do anything stupid, and the FBI will shut down our entire network!"
"I don't care!" Vincent roared. "She took my pride! She made me a laughingstock in front of every syndicate in the country!"
At that moment, the door to Vincent’s office opened, and Bianca Moretti walked in. She was wearing a high-end designer dress—bought with Vincent’s money—and had an anxious expression on her face.
"Vincent, honey," Bianca cooed, walking over and placing her hands on his chest. "Why are you stressing over that plain girl? Let her have her money. You have me. My father says we can move to Miami—"
Vincent roughly grabbed Bianca’s wrists and shoved her away from him.
"Get out!" Vincent snarled, his eyes wild with rage.
Bianca gasped, stumbling back. "Vincent! What's wrong with you?!"
"You!" Vincent screamed, pointing a finger at her face. "You ruined everything! You played sick, you threw a fake panic attack over a minor cosmetic procedure, and you dragged me in front of the news cameras! I lost my wife, my children, my shipping ports, and my reputation because of you!"
"I didn't force you to come!" Bianca cried out, her arrogance slipping into fear. "You came because you wanted to show off! You wanted people to think you had a pretty mistress on your arm!"
"Get the hell out of my house!" Vincent bellowed. "And if I ever see your face again, I’ll have my men dump your father's business into the river!"
Bianca fled the room in tears, realizing too late that her reign as the favored mistress was over.
Desperate to regain leverage, Vincent concocted a dangerous plan. He knew that Naomi’s only vulnerability was the preemie twins still recovering in the NICU at St. Catherine’s.
Two nights later, at 2:00 a.m., two corrupted security guards paid off by the Caruso syndicate disabled the closed-circuit cameras on the third floor of St. Catherine’s Hospital.
A masked figure slipped into the NICU corridor, holding a keycard stolen from a nurse.
The figure reached the door of the preemie unit, intending to breach the room and secure the infants as bargaining chips to force Naomi to drop the lawsuits.
However, as the door slid open, the lights suddenly flashed on.
Standing inside the NICU unit was not helpless hospital staff, but six heavily armed tactical guards from Vanguard Security—the top private military firm in the country, fully retained by the Sterling Trust.
Sitting quietly in an armchair beside the twin incubators was Naomi Sterling.
May you like
She was sipping tea, looking entirely unfazed.
"Hello, Vincent," Naomi said smoothly, looking at the masked figure who froze in the doorway. "I was wondering when you would try something so predictable."
