Chapter 32
Chapter 32: The First Counter-Strike
The warning wasn't just a threat; it was an invitation. Vincent Moretti was letting them know that the rules of engagement in New York didn't include the sanctuary protocols of Chicago. Children were fair game.
Enzo’s reaction was silent and absolute. Within three hours, the Brooklyn loft was evacuated. Lillian was placed in a reinforced safe house in northern New Jersey under a heavy, twelve-man guard detail led by Marco himself. Harper refused to go with them. She stood by the window of their temporary operations base in Queens, her emerald-green ring catching the dim city lights.
"If I hide now, he wins," she said, her voice shaking with an ice-cold fury. "My father made me hide for eighteen years, Enzo. I am not spending my motherhood in a cellar."
"I’m not asking you to hide, corporate princess," Enzo said, stepping into the light as he checked the magazine of his weapon. "I’m asking you to turn the key."
May you like
The counter-strike began at 4:00 AM. Using the routing numbers Harper had memorized, Enzo’s financial teams executed a massive, synchronized short-sell on Vanguard’s primary shell entities. Simultaneously, an anonymous tip containing the encrypted banking records of three Supreme Court judges was delivered to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct.
The data didn't come from a hacker; it came from Harper’s mind, written in black ink. By sunrise, the Wall Street tickers were flashing red. The Moretti family’s legitimate empire had just lost eighty million dollars in paper wealth, and three of the most powerful men in New York law enforcement received emergency subpoenas before their first cup of coffee.
