Chapter 17
Raffaele didn't draw his weapon. He didn't strike her. The physical violence was unnecessary; the psychological destruction was already complete. He watched her cower, utterly broken and stripped of her aristocratic arrogance.
"Where is your daughter?" Raffaele asked abruptly, his tone shifting to cold, objective calculation.
Victoria sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. "Sophie is... she's at a boarding school in the city. My brother was supposed to pick her up tomorrow."
Raffaele pulled his encrypted smartphone from his overcoat and dialed Vincent.
"Have the extraction team in Chicago locate the boarding school," Raffaele ordered smoothly. "Secure the nine-year-old girl and deliver her to the state child protective services with an anonymous, heavily funded trust for her care. Ensure she is never linked to the Greco family again."
Victoria let out a horrifying, breathless sob. "You're taking my daughter?"
"I am saving your daughter," Raffaele corrected, his dark eyes locking onto Victoria's. "I am ensuring she doesn't grow up in a world where her mother uses children as pawns in a syndicate war. She will have a clean, safe life, entirely free from the poison of your bloodline."
He turned his back on the weeping woman and walked toward the door.
"What about me?" Victoria shrieked, crawling across the floor toward his boots. "What are you going to do to me?"
Raffaele stopped with his hand on the doorframe. He didn't look back at her.
"Vincent," Raffaele spoke into his comms earpiece. "Bring the transport van to the porch. Miss Hale is coming with us."
"Where are we taking her, Boss?" Vincent asked, his voice crackling through the static.
May you like
"We have a private, secure facility on the coast of Maine," Raffaele stated, his voice a low, terrifying hum. "It is very cold, very isolated, and entirely cut off from the outside world. She will spend the rest of her natural life there, in a six-by-six concrete cell, contemplating the exact moment she decided to touch my son."
Victoria screamed, a raw, primal sound of absolute terror, as two massive Marconi operatives entered the cabin and dragged her out into the freezing night.
