Chapter 3 - The Empire Before Sunrise
Dominic Russo was not supposed to survive until morning.
At 5:00 a.m., the senior members of the Russo organization were scheduled to meet at a private club.
If Dominic was dead, control would pass temporarily to his cousin, Lorenzo Russo.
That rule had been written twenty years earlier, when the family operated through loyalty, fear, and blood.
Dominic had spent the last four years trying to destroy it.
Not publicly.
Not all at once.
He began selling illegal gambling operations.
Closed the warehouses used by arms smugglers.
Moved hundreds of ordinary employees into legitimate shipping, hospitality, and security companies.
Lorenzo fought every change.
He claimed Dominic was weakening the family.
Dominic answered that an empire requiring frightened children and dead men was not a legacy.
It was a disease.
The argument became personal after Dominic’s younger brother, Matteo, was killed during a dispute Lorenzo had secretly encouraged.
Dominic never proved his cousin’s involvement.
But he stopped trusting him.
The 5:00 a.m. meeting had been called for one purpose.
Dominic planned to remove Lorenzo from all authority.
He also intended to sign a restructuring agreement transferring legal businesses into an independent trust.
The trust would protect employees and their families.
It would prevent any relative from using company money for criminal operations.
Lorenzo would lose access to almost everything.
The final signatures had not yet been completed.
Under the old charter, Dominic’s death before the meeting would give Lorenzo emergency power.
Vincent knew this.
So did Dominic’s daughter, Sofia.
Only three other people knew.
Dr. Hale was not supposed to be one of them.
Inside the emergency room, Cara helped stabilize Dominic while another surgeon inserted the chest tube Hale had refused to place.
Dark fluid drained, but Dominic’s pressure improved.
The toxicology team found traces of a powerful heart-slowing drug.
The medication could make a weak pulse nearly impossible to detect.
Combined with the pressure inside Dominic’s chest, it created the appearance of death.
Someone had designed the combination carefully.
Vincent picked up the fallen bodyguard’s phone using a handkerchief.
The device required a code.
Cara remembered the guard entering four numbers while waiting in the hall.
2-2-8-0.
The time Hale later declared Dominic dead.
The phone unlocked.
The message chain contained only one name.
May you like
LORENZO.
👉 Lorenzo had expected the hospital to finish what the ambush began—but one missing message suggested Dr. Hale had done this before.
