Chapter 7 - The Patriarch's Shadow
Dominic DeLuca stepped into the white light of the floodlights.
He was seventy-two years old, but he carried himself with the rigid, domineering authority of a man who had controlled an empire for half a century. He wore a heavy black cashmere overcoat, a silk scarf, and carried a gold-topped wooden walking stick.
Behind him stood eight heavily armed men in dark tactical gear, their rifles pointed directly into the mouth of Bay 4.
Among them was Nathan Cross—Vincent’s chief corporate attorney—holding a thick leather briefcase.
Vincent stepped out of the storage bay, placing himself directly between his uncle’s gunmen and Claire. Leo moved to his left, his hand tucked inside his coat.
"Nathan," Vincent said smoothly, his eyes narrowing as he looked at his attorney. "I see where your loyalty lies."
Nathan Cross looked down at his shoes, refusing to meet Vincent's eyes. "I’m sorry, Vincent. Dominic built DeLuca Dominion. You were just the public face to make it look clean. We couldn't let you ruin thirty years of work over an old ghost."
Dominic DeLuca chuckled, a dry, raspy sound that sounded like dry leaves scraping across stone. He leaned heavily on his walking stick, staring into the dark storage unit at the two open trunks.
"Look at you, Vincent," Dominic sneered, his dark eyes filled with contempt. "Standing in the dirt with a ruined shirt, holding hands with a third-rate painter, crying over a dead woman’s pictures. Your father was a warrior. You... you're an embarrassment."
Vincent took a slow step forward onto the gravel. "Did she scream, Dominic? When your men pushed her car off the ridge in '98?"
Dominic’s face didn't show a shred of guilt. "Lucia was a traitor. She was going to give thirty years of our family history to the federal government because she couldn't stomach the reality of how real money is made. She deserved far worse than a quick drop into a ravine."
Claire stepped up beside Vincent, her eyes burning with cold rage. "She wasn't a traitor. She was a mother trying to save her son from a monster."
Dominic looked at Claire, his lip curling into a cruel smile. "And you must be the Whitmore girl. Your grandfather was a stubborn old fool, too. He thought hiding behind his little art shop would keep him safe. If he hadn't died of heart failure two years ago, I would have had him put in the ground right beside Lucia."
"Touch her," Vincent said, his voice dropping into a register so low and lethal that even Dominic’s armed guards shifted uncomfortably on the gravel, "and I will tear your empire down brick by brick with my bare hands."
"You don't have an empire anymore, Vincent!" Dominic barked, slamming his gold-topped stick onto the gravel. "Nathan executed the emergency board provisions twenty minutes ago! As of midnight, you have been removed as CEO of DeLuca Dominion! You have no money, no security, and no authority!"
Dominic pointed his walking stick toward the open trunks inside the bay.
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"Burn the trunks," Dominic ordered his men. "Kill the Vance old man. Bring the girl and the canvas to the car. And as for my nephew..." Dominic looked at Vincent with cold, dead eyes. "...put a bullet in his knee and leave him in the woods."
Before the guards could raise their rifles, the dark night sky above the storage facility exploded with the deafening roar of three heavy twin-rotor military helicopters dropping through the low fog.
