Chapter 4 - The Cartel's Leverage
The heavy, toxic silence in the penthouse was completely deafening.
"Who do you work for, Elena?" Alexander asked smoothly, his voice completely devoid of human mercy. He aimed his heavy pistol directly at the marble floor between her feet.
"The Romanovs!" Elena shrieked hysterically, completely abandoning her innocent maid persona. "They took Sofia five years ago! They’ve been keeping her locked in a heavily guarded compound in upstate New York!"
Alexander physically staggered backward, his chest heaving with absolute, apocalyptic panic. His little sister wasn't dead. She was alive, actively held hostage by the exact rival syndicate he had been trying to destroy for half a decade.
"They forced me to take the maid job here," Elena wept pathetically, her gray uniform wrinkling as she curled into a ball. "They told me to copy your offshore bank routing numbers and steal the physical ledgers from your safe. They gave me the duplicate locket to prove to you that they had her, in case you caught me."
"Why did you wait?" Alexander roared, the demonic, relentless apex predator completely taking over. "If they gave you the locket to blackmail me, why hide it in a wooden box for six months?!"
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"Because they were going to kill my daughter!" Elena wailed, pointing a trembling finger at little Lyla. "The Romanovs told me that the exact second you found out Sofia was alive, you would start a massive gang war. They swore that if I triggered the war before I successfully stole your bank accounts, they would execute my three-year-old baby!"
👉 Alexander’s blood ran ice-cold as he realized the horrific, impossible choice the mother was forced to make.
