Keira climbed into the car. She was shivering violently.
Dock leaned over and cranked the heat up to the max. He stripped off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.
He didn't say a word.
He put the car in gear and peeled out of the driveway, spraying gravel everywhere.
His hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel. A vein was pulsing in his temple.
Keira wiped her face with his jacket. It smelled like safety.
"I didn't get the money," she whispered. Her voice was broken.
"It's not your fault," he said. His voice was terrifyingly calm.
"Janie stole the trust fund," Keira sobbed. "She used it for investments. Mom is going to die because Janie wanted to buy land."
The car swerved slightly, then corrected.
"She stole it?" Dock asked.
"Yes."
Keira grabbed his arm. The muscle was hard as rock.
"Dock, please. Can I sell the ring? The green one? Even if it's just fifty bucks. I need to buy time."
He looked at her. For a second, his mask slipped. She saw pure, unadulterated pain in his eyes.
"No," he said. "Don't sell the ring."
"But..."
"I have a way," he said. "Trust me. Just... sleep."
The heat and the emotional exhaustion hit Keira at once. Her eyelids felt heavy.
She leaned her head against the window.
"Okay," she whispered.
She drifted off.
Jonah waited until her breathing evened out.
He put in his Bluetooth earpiece.
He dialed Chad.
"Initiate Project Titan," he said.
There was a silence on the other end.
"Boss," Chad said. "Titan? That's the nuclear option. That's for corporate warfare. You want to use that on a family business?"
"They stole a medical trust fund," Jonah said. "They threw water on her. They threw her in the dirt."
"Understood."
"I want the Jacobson Group insolvent by Friday," Jonah said. "Freeze their assets. Call in their loans."
"And Janie?"
"Send the evidence of the embezzlement to the SEC. And the IRS. I want her in prison."
"What about the land she bought?"
"Have the Whitmore Group buy the debt. Pennies on the dollar. Then we acquire Whitmore."
"Jonah... this is a massacre."
"Good."
He hung up.
He looked at Keira sleeping next to him. Her cheek was bruised. Her hands were scraped.
Looking at her battered state, the last remnants of his cold, calculated detachment shattered completely. She wasn't just a pawn anymore. She was his.
He reached out and gently brushed a wet strand of hair from her forehead.
"They made you cry," he whispered**, his voice a dark, lethal vow**. "I'm going to make them bleed."
He drove back to the Bronx in silence.
He carried her upstairs. She didn't wake up.
He laid her on the bed and pulled the blanket over her.
He went into the living room.
He opened his laptop.
He logged into the dark web terminal he used to manage the Pennington shadow accounts.
He cracked his knuckles.
The screen glowed blue in the dark apartment.
Jonah Pennington went to work.
By the time the sun came up, the Jacobson family would be poor.
And they wouldn't even know who killed them.
