Chapter 10 – [THE CHICAGO STANDOFF]

Nico stared at the plane ticket.

Then he looked up at Victor Moretti.

And he laughed.

It wasn’t a nervous laugh. It was the dark, dangerous laugh of the Chicago boss who owned the city.

“You walk into my home, insult my fiancée, and issue a threat?” Nico asked quietly.

Victor’s eyes narrowed. “I gave you a warning. The East Coast wants the Whitmore shipping lines. If you don’t hand them over, we go to war.”

Gabriel wheeled into the room from the hallway, his face hardened.

“We don’t negotiate with terrorists, Victor. You want the shipping lines? Come and take them.”

Victor smiled patronizingly at Gabriel. “Bold words from a boy in a chair.”

“This boy in a chair just authorized a hostile takeover of your primary import warehouses in New Jersey,” Gabriel retorted smoothly, holding up a tablet. “The ink dried five minutes ago. You’re locked out of the Midwest.”

Victor’s smug expression vanished.

Nico stepped forward, closing the distance between him and the New York boss.

“You relied on Whitmore and my uncle Marcus. They’re gone. My family is united. And we don’t bleed for New York.”

Victor’s face flushed with fury.

“You think you can win a war against my family?”

“I don’t have to win a war,” Nico said, his voice a low growl. “I just have to make it too expensive for you to fight.”

Nico snapped his fingers.

Luca, the security chief, stepped out of the shadows, flanked by ten heavily armed men.

“Escort Mr. Moretti to the airport,” Nico ordered. “Make sure he gets on a flight back to New York. Coach class.”

Victor glared at Nico, realizing he had underestimated the new generation of the Valenti family.

Without another word, he turned and marched to the elevator, the guards following closely behind.

When the doors closed, I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.

Nico turned to me and picked up the plane ticket from the table.

He tore it in half.

“Nobody tells you where to go, Harper. You belong here.”

“I know,” I smiled, walking into his embrace.

But Gabriel interrupted our moment, looking down at his tablet.

“Uh, Nico? Harper? You might want to see this.”

Gabriel turned the screen toward us.

It was a live security feed from the front gate of the estate.

A black town car had just pulled up.

And stepping out of the passenger side was Sabrina Whitmore.

She had escaped federal custody.

TITLE: THE FINAL VOW

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