Chapter 7 - BALANCING THE BOOKS
Roman strode across the wet concrete, closing the distance between them in seconds. The fierce, terrifying intensity in his eyes melted into a dark, burning fury as he looked her over, checking for injuries.
"Are you hit?" he demanded, his voice dangerously low.
"I'm fine," Norah breathed, steadying herself. "My shoes are ruined, but I'm fine."
Roman exhaled slowly, a sound that carried the weight of a restrained volcano. He turned his head toward the warehouse, where Moretti and his remaining guards were currently pinned down behind stacked shipping containers.
"Leo," Roman called out without looking back.
"Boss?"
"Bring the laptop."
Ten minutes later, the firing had ceased entirely. Moretti’s men had either fled into the river or surrendered under overwhelming force. Salvatore Moretti himself—bloody, battered, and breathing heavily—was dragged out of the warehouse by two of Roman’s enforcers and thrown onto his knees in the dirt before Roman and Norah.
Moretti spat blood onto the concrete, glaring up with venomous hatred. "You think you won, Castiglione? You're a corporate suit playing mobster. The commission will wipe you out."
Roman didn't raise his voice. He walked slowly toward the older mob boss, stopping a few feet away, looking down as if inspecting a stain on his shoe.
"The commission is obsolete, Salvatore," Roman said smoothly. "And you're a relic. You kill with guns. You steal with brute force. You never understood that the real power in this city isn't held by the man with the loudest weapon." He gestured toward Norah, who stood beside him holding an open laptop, the screen glowing in the dark. "It's held by the person who controls the ledger."
Norah stepped forward, tapping a key on the laptop. A digital interface flashed across the screen—offshore accounts, shell corporation routing numbers, real estate deeds, and encrypted assets spanning three continents.
"Every single offshore account Moretti uses to fund his drug routes," Norah said clearly, her voice echoing in the damp air. "Including the secret Swiss holdings you thought were untraceable, Salvatore. I tracked the routing errors through your primary front company in the Cayman Islands. It took me twenty minutes."
May you like
Moretti’s face drained of all color. He looked at Norah not with anger, but with sheer, unadulterated terror. "You... you frozen assets?"
"Not just frozen," Roman replied, smiling coldly. "Reallocated. Every dime of your empire now belongs to Castiglione Global Holdings. Legally. Formally signed over by your own shell proxies thirty seconds ago." Roman leaned down, resting his hand on Moretti’s shoulder. "You're not a kingpin anymore, Salvatore. You're a bankrupt old man."
