Chapter 45 - The Ashes of the Empire
The ride to Greenwich was a blur of flashing highway lights and silent, suffocating tension. The armored SUV navigated the back roads of the city, avoiding the heavily patrolled arteries.
Inside the cabin, the heater blasted, thawing the freezing rain from their bones. Maya sat in the back seat, her torn and filthy yellow diner uniform clinging to her skin. Sofia was fast asleep, her head resting heavily in Maya's lap, her small hand clutching the torn fabric of Maya's apron.
Dante sat in the front passenger seat, turning his satellite phone over in his bloodied hands. The Blackwood empire as he knew it was effectively ash. Julian's betrayal, combined with the federal raids on the Five Families, meant the old underworld was dead. The ports, the laundering channels, the vast criminal network—it was all compromised.
And yet, as he looked through the rearview mirror at the exhausted waitress and his peacefully sleeping daughter, Dante felt an astonishing sense of liberation.
"Marcus," Dante spoke quietly, ensuring he didn't wake the child. "Initiate the ghost protocols. Burn the ledgers at the Long Island estate. Wipe the offshore servers."
Marcus glanced over from the driver's seat, his eyes widening slightly. "Boss, that deletes over forty percent of our liquid assets. We’d be severing our ties to the syndicates permanently."
"The syndicates are dead," Dante replied, his gray-green eyes reflecting the passing streetlights. "My brother was right about one thing. It is time for evolution. We take the clean assets. We go entirely legitimate. I am done operating in the dark."
Maya heard him from the back seat. She looked up, her tired brown eyes meeting his in the mirror.
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"You can't just walk away from the mob, Dante," Maya said softly, her voice raspy.
"I can," Dante answered with terrifying certainty. "Because if they ever try to pull me back, they know exactly what I am capable of burning to the ground."
