The heavy oak doors of Lorenzo’s study clicked shut behind Mason, his head of security. Mason was a broad-shouldered man with two decades of military intelligence experience, whose face rarely betrayed a single emotion.

"Lorenzo... please!" Victor begged, dropping to his knees, his polished shoes sliding against the polished wood floor. "I served your father for twenty years! I built this company with him!"

"My father trusted you, Victor," Lorenzo said, stopping three feet from him, looking down with eyes like polished flint. "And you repaid his family by attempting to murder my wife and threatening a three-year-old child."

"I didn't want to hurt Isabella!" Victor wept, sweat pouring down his face. "She found the ledger! She wouldn't let it go! If she had told you, you would have killed me!"

"And now?" Lorenzo asked softly. "What did you think would happen now?"

"Take the money!" Victor whimpered, pulling a black key card from his pocket. "Take the eighty million! It's in a Swiss vault! I'll give you the codes! Just let me walk away!"

Lorenzo looked at Mason. "Take him down to the docks. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office has been provided with the complete financial trail regarding the arson, extortion, and corporate fraud. Let him spend the remainder of his days in a federal maximum-security cell."

Victor blinked, stunned. "You... you're handing me to the feds?!"

"Death is too quick a mercy for what you made my wife suffer," Lorenzo said coldly. "In prison, you will wake up every single morning remembering that you failed."

Two guards grabbed Victor by his collar, dragging him screaming out of the boardroom.

The room fell into a heavy, respectful silence.

Captain Marcus stepped forward, bowing his head toward Isabella. "Mrs. DeLuca... on behalf of every captain in this room, we apologize for not seeing the snake in our grass. Welcome home."