Chapter 10
The interior of the luxury town car was a sanctuary of heat and soft leather. Richard sat in the back seat, holding Lily securely in his lap. The little girl had fallen into a deep, exhausted sleep the moment the car began to move, her steady breathing a comforting rhythm against his chest. Her fair, rosy skin was slowly regaining its natural, healthy color, the terrifying blue tint of frostbite fading away in the luxurious warmth of the vehicle.
Richard kept his tailored overcoat wrapped tightly around her, his strong, masculine hands gently rubbing her small back. The bright, cinematic streetlights of the city flashed through the tinted windows as the car navigated the snowy roads toward his downtown penthouse.
His smartphone vibrated in his trouser pocket.
Careful not to wake the sleeping child, Richard pulled the phone out and checked the caller ID. It was his lead security director, a man who managed the darker, more complex affairs of the Whitaker empire. Richard pressed the phone to his ear.
"Speak," Richard commanded quietly, his crisp American accent barely above a whisper.
"Sir," the director's voice came through the line, serious and urgent. "I just executed the asset freeze on Mark and Claudia as you requested. The accounts are locked down. But while we were auditing the recent transactions, we found something highly irregular."
Richard’s eyes narrowed, his handsome, aged face hardening. "Define irregular."
"Claudia didn't just lock the girl outside because she broke a vase, sir," the director explained, the tension evident in his voice. "We found a series of massive, encrypted wire transfers originating from a shell company in Eastern Europe. The money was deposited into Claudia's private offshore account over the last three weeks."
The temperature in the car seemed to drop, despite the heater. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying she was being paid, sir," the director confirmed. "Someone transferred five million dollars to her. The final payout was scheduled to execute upon the delivery of a death certificate for Lily. They weren't just punishing the child, Mr. Whitaker. They were trying to stage a tragic, accidental death by exposure."
Richard’s grip on the phone tightened until his knuckles turned stark white. His heart pounded with a fresh, terrifying wave of rage. This wasn't just a case of an abusive stepmother and a cowardly father. This was a calculated, funded assassination attempt on his three-year-old granddaughter.
"Who sent the money?" Richard whispered, his voice vibrating with lethal, unrestrained malice.
"We are tracing the shell company now, sir," the director replied. "But the encryption matches the protocols used by the Vanguard Syndicate. Your old rivals."
Richard looked down at the beautiful, innocent child sleeping in his arms. The petite, adorable girl who had survived nine hours in a blizzard because she was stronger than the monsters who had tried to kill her. The Vanguard Syndicate wanted to strike at him by murdering his bloodline.
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"Find the exact source of the transfer," Richard ordered, his eyes staring out into the dark, snowy night with the cold, calculating glare of a veteran Mafia boss preparing for war. "And tell the men to prepare the armory. I am going to burn their entire organization to the ground."
Richard ended the call, slipping the phone back into his pocket. He held Lily closer, the bright city lights casting long shadows across his face as the town car sped into the heart of a brand new, incredibly violent storm.
