Chapter 10 - THE SIEGE OF CHICAGO
The penthouse smelled of cordite, blood, and the freezing winter wind whipping through the destroyed windows.
Salvatore Moretti's hit team lay eliminated or restrained on the floor, their assault completely broken by the combined force of Graham's suicide intervention and Marcus’s counter-offensive. Marcus walked into the shattered room, his trench coat flecked with snow and blood, his smoking weapon held low.
"The building is secured," Marcus reported, his sharp eyes surveying the carnage before landing on the man slumped across the floor. "Salvatore Moretti was captured at the perimeter. The Moretti family is finished in this city."
Claire pushed herself up from the debris. Graham was lying on his side on the ruined rug, his skin ashen, dark blood pooling rapidly beneath his tactical vest. His breathing was shallow and ragged, each exhale rattling in his chest.
"Graham," Claire whispered, kneeling beside him, her hands instinctively pressing against the wound near his lung.
Graham looked up, his slate-gray eyes hazy with pain, but when he saw Claire and Owen standing unharmed before him, a faint, peaceful smile touched his lips.
"You're safe," Graham wheezed, blood flecking his teeth. "Both of you... safe."
Owen stepped forward, his small hands reaching out to press down alongside Claire's, trying to stop the bleeding. The boy’s face was pale, his eyes wide with an emotion he had never learned to process in the cold, calculated world of the Swiss Alps: fear for the father he had sworn to hate.
"Don't die," Owen whispered, his chin trembling. "You said you were going to hold the line."
Graham lifted a bloodstained, trembling hand, his fingers hesitating inches from Owen’s face, just as they had at the gala. But this time, Owen didn't pull away. The boy leaned into the touch, letting Graham’s calloused palm rest against his cheek.
"I'm sorry, Owen," Graham gasped, tears cutting through the grime on his face. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there... when you took your first breath. I was a coward... I let evil into our home... and I threw away the only two things that ever mattered."
He turned his fading gaze to Claire, his chest hitching painfully.
"I signed... the full release of everything... to you, Claire," he murmured, his voice fading to a thread. "Not just the money. The family names... the titles... everything. It’s all yours. Burn it... or rule it... but keep him safe."
His eyes rolled back, and his hand slipped from Owen’s cheek, hitting the floor with a limp thud.
"No!" Owen cried out, grabbing his father's limp hand.
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Claire’s heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. Five years of ice, five years of meticulously plotted vengeance, and yet, watching Graham bleed out on her floor to save their son, the wall she had built around her soul cracked down the middle.
"Get the trauma kit!" Claire shouted at Marcus, her voice cracking with fury and desperation. "Call the surgical team to the private hangar! He doesn't get to die now! He doesn't get off that easily!"
