Chapter 15 - The Weakness of Kings
The retaliation was swift and brutal.
Two days after Tessa discovered the zoning trap, a delivery truck belonging to Corvino Logistics was hijacked on Interstate 55, just fifty miles north of St. Louis. The driver, an older man named Joseph who had been with the Corvino family for fifteen years, was beaten severely and left on the shoulder of the highway. The cargo—nearly two million dollars worth of medical supplies destined for a regional hospital—was burned along with the truck.
Vincent and Tessa arrived at the county hospital in the middle of the night. The fluorescent lights of the ICU were harsh and sterile. Joseph lay in the bed, his face unrecognizable from the bruises, his chest rising and falling with the help of a respirator.
His wife sat in a plastic chair by the bed, her shoulders shaking as she wept quietly.
Vincent stood in the doorway, his hand gripping his walnut cane so tightly the wood creaked. The sight of his loyal driver, a man who had trusted the Corvino promise of a clean, safe future, lying broken in a hospital bed tore at something deep inside him. The old, dormant monster—the beast that had once ruled the Chicago underworld with blood and iron—awoke, screaming for vengeance.
"I’ll kill him," Vincent whispered, his voice so low it was barely a breath, but it carried a terrifying, icy weight. "I’ll dismantle his entire family. I’ll make Detroit a graveyard."
Tessa stepped in front of him, blocking his view of the hospital room. She placed her hands on his chest, feeling the wild, furious beat of his heart. "Vincent, look at me. Look at me."
His dark eyes were wild, bloodshot with rage, looking past her as if she were a shadow.
"Vincent!" she said, her voice cracking with emotion, her hands moving to cup his face, forcing him to look down at her. "If you do this, Silas wins. He wants you to go to Detroit with guns. He wants you to start a war. The moment you pull a trigger, the life we built here is dead. The garden in Lake Forest, the kitchen, the future... it all goes away. Joseph didn't get on that truck for the old Corvino family. He got on it because he believed in the new one. Don't let Silas take that from him."
Vincent stared at her, his breathing ragged. The conflict in his eyes was agonizing to watch—the struggle between the man he had been raised to be and the man Tessa had helped him become.
May you like
Slowly, the tension in his shoulders began to dissipate. He leaned his forehead against hers, letting out a long, shuddering sigh. "He’s hurting our people, Tessa."
"Then we fight him with our minds, Vincent," she whispered, her tears finally spilling over. "We are the king and the queen. We don't use shovels anymore. We use the board."
