Chapter 2 - The Matriarch's Downfall Begins
I left Mave and Posie heavily guarded by Wesley and a dozen of my most loyal, hand-picked enforcers. I changed out of my soaking wet tuxedo, put on a tailored black suit, and strapped my suppressed sidearm into its shoulder holster. I wasn't going to a wedding anymore. I was going to a corporate execution.
When I arrived at the Hail family compound in the Hamptons, the atmosphere was chaotic. Dozens of luxury cars were still idling in the driveway. The capos, lieutenants, and board members were swarming the grand foyer, shouting into their phones, trying to manage the catastrophic fallout of a groom abandoning a five-hundred-person billionaire wedding.
I walked through the heavy oak doors, and the room went dead silent.
“Where is she?” I asked quietly.
Nobody answered, but they didn't have to. The heavy library doors at the end of the hall swung open. My mother, Evelyn Hail, stood there in her immaculate silver gown, her face contoured into a mask of pure, aristocratic rage.
“Garrett,” she hissed, her voice cutting through the foyer like a razor. “Do you have any comprehension of what you have just done? The Ashfords are demanding blood. You have publicly humiliated Coraline and shattered a billion-dollar merger over some street trash you saw on a sidewalk.”
I didn't yell. I didn't reach for my weapon. I walked slowly across the foyer, the clicking of my shoes echoing off the marble floor. I stepped into the library, signaling my two most trusted lieutenants to close the massive doors behind me, locking the rest of the syndicate out.
“I saw Mave,” I said, my voice eerily calm.
My mother’s eye twitched. Just a millimeter. But I saw it. “Mave is gone, Garrett. She couldn't handle this life. You need to accept that and return to the cathedral immediately. Marcus Ashford is expecting—”
“I also saw my daughter,” I interrupted smoothly. “A two-year-old girl with winter-gray eyes. My eyes, Mother. The eyes of the heir you threatened to murder in cold blood.”
Evelyn went perfectly still. The mask finally cracked, revealing the ruthless, sociopathic monster lurking beneath the diamonds and pearls. She didn't deny it. She simply lifted her chin, her eyes narrowing into cold slits. “I did what was necessary for the survival of this empire. You were blinded by sentimentality. I excised a weakness. You will thank me when you are older, Garrett. Now, tell me where they are, so my men can finish the job properly.”
The sheer audacity of her evil washed over me. I smiled. A dark, hollow smile that made my mother take a sudden, involuntary step backward.
“You think you still give orders here,” I said, walking toward her massive mahogany desk. I picked up her crystal tumbler of scotch and poured it directly onto the Persian rug. “You think you are the matriarch. But while you were busy trying to play God with my family, you forgot who actually runs the digital infrastructure of this syndicate.”
I pulled a encrypted flash drive from my pocket and tossed it onto the desk.
“Clause 4, Section B of the Hail Syndicate bylaws,” I recited, watching the blood drain completely from her face. “In the event of treason against a direct bloodline heir, the acting Underboss has the unilateral authority to trigger the Alpha Protocol. I triggered it from the car an hour ago, Mother.”
“You... you couldn't have,” she stammered, rushing to her laptop and frantically typing her master passwords.
“Every offshore account,” I continued, my voice echoing in the grand library. “Every shell company, every real estate deed, and every political bribe ledger. It has all been irrevocably transferred to a blind trust that solely requires my biometric signature. You are locked out of the banking network, the shipping ports, and the casino vaults. As of this exact second, Evelyn, you are absolutely bankrupt.”
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She stared at the red 'ACCESS DENIED' flashing on her screen, her hands shaking violently. She looked up at me, her face contorted with desperation. “Garrett, the Ashfords will slaughter us both! Without my alliance, Marcus will initiate a street war! You need me!”
“I don't need you,” I whispered, turning my back on the woman who gave birth to me. “And I highly doubt Marcus Ashford is going to fight a war for a woman who was planning to betray him.”
