Chapter 10
CHAPTER 10: THE LAST PLAY
The storm outside was furious, the black waves of the Atlantic slamming violently against the hull of the hundred-foot private yacht docked illegally near the edge of the Chelsea Piers. Inside the main cabin, I was bound tightly to a steel bolted chair, the deep, heavy hum of the twin diesel engines vibrating through my bones as the vessel began to pull away from the concrete dock.
Julian Rivas stood directly over me. In his arms, he held Leo. My son was crying hysterically, his tiny face red, his small hands reaching out through the air toward me, screaming the only word he knew: "Mama! Mama!"
"Let him go!" I begged, my voice breaking as tears and rainwater streamed down my face. All the pride, all the Salazar power, all the corporate armor evaporated into nothing. I was just a mother watching her child be stolen. "Take the shipping lines! Take Grupo Salazar! We won't fight the takeovers. I’ll sign everything over to Vance Global tonight! Just give me my baby!"
"The empire is already mine, Valeria," Julian said calmly, his eyes fixed on the dark, churning waters of the Hudson River outside the reinforced glass. "And this boy is the bridge to the next fifty years of our family name. You? You are a loose end. Tomorrow morning, the NYPD will find your body washed up near Liberty Island. A tragic, heartbreaking story of an unstable, fraudulent heiress who couldn't handle the pressure of her impending federal indictment and took her own life. The American public absolutely devours a high-society tragedy."
He reached into his tailored jacket and pulled out a small, pre-loaded medical syringe filled with a clear, lethal dose of liquid.
"Any last words for my son before you sleep?" Julian asked, stepping closer, the needle gleaming under the cabin lights.
I looked past him. My eyes landed on the small silver clock sitting on the mahogany bar counter next to him—the one Evelyn had taken from my penthouse as a sick trophy. In the upper right corner of the antique frame, hidden behind the Roman numerals, a microscopic blue light was blinking rapidly.
My father hadn't built a multibillion-dollar empire across two continents by being stupid. And I hadn't survived a year of Santiago's psychological torture by being weak.
I stopped crying. The terror in my eyes hardened into something dead, cold, and absolute. I looked directly past Julian, straight into the lens of the hidden camera inside that silver clock.
I forced a bloody, venomous smile to my lips.
"Just one thing," I whispered, my voice echoing over my son's cries. "Did you really think I didn't know Alejandro was your mole?"
Julian’s brow furrowed, his hand pausing an inch from my neck. "What?"
Before he could process the question, the world outside exploded.
The reinforced glass windows of the luxury cabin shattered into a million sparkling shards as flashbang grenades detonated across the deck. The blinding, deafening roar of three unmarked tactical FBI helicopters materialized directly overhead, their searchlights turning the dark night into blinding daylight. From the black water, five high-speed Coast Guard interceptor boats slammed against the yacht’s hull, sirens wailing like banshees.
"Federal Agents! Drop your weapons! Drop the child!" a megaphone roared through the shattered glass.
But Julian Rivas didn't surrender. Driven by pure, generational madness, he fiercely gripped Leo against his chest, turned on his heel, and sprinted out onto the stormy, rain-slicked open deck of the moving yacht.
I fought against the ropes, screaming, as I watched him through the broken door. Balanced precariously on the very edge of the low steel railing, with the black, violent currents of the ocean churning directly beneath his feet, Julian looked back at me. The wind whipped his silver hair into his eyes, his face twisted into the mask of a man who would rather destroy everything than lose.
May you like
He leaned backward over the dark abyss, tightening his grip on my screaming baby.
"If I don't keep him," Julian shouted over the deafening roar of the helicopters and the storm, "nobody does!"
