Chapter 7 - THE KING WITHOUT A THRONE
By sunrise, Chicago believed Damian Hawthorne had lost his empire.
Financial news channels described an emergency board action.
Anonymous sources claimed Damian had become unstable after his fiancée’s arrest.
Photographs leaked showing police at his home.
Another image showed Noah being carried from the burned slaughterhouse.
The headline was brutal.
MAFIA HEIR ENDANGERS TODDLER DURING PRIVATE FAMILY WAR.
Grace stared at the television.
“They’re making you look responsible.”
Damian switched it off.
“That’s the point.”
The board had invoked a morality and incapacity provision Elias created to protect legitimate companies from criminal collapse.
Gabriel had turned Elias’s safeguard against Damian.
But Gabriel made one mistake.
He assumed Damian would fight for the empire first.
Damian didn’t.
He stayed beside Noah.
He hired independent doctors.
Child-welfare experts.
Lawyers.
He documented everything.
Grace noticed.
“You’re not trying to take the company back.”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
Damian looked at Noah.
“Because Gabriel thinks power is my weakness.”
“He’s wrong?”
Damian was silent.
Then said,
“He used to be right.”
Grace understood.
The old Damian might have charged into war.
Threatened board members.
Bought judges.
Started a conflict.
Exactly what Gabriel wanted.
Instead, Damian began dismantling Gabriel’s story.
Camille survived.
The injured officers testified she had been abducted from police transport.
Forensic evidence proved Noah had been held at the Voss-owned facility.
Cole produced Elias’s letters.
And Isabel’s recording was authenticated.
But then Gabriel struck again.
A video appeared online.
Grace.
Inside Noah’s nursery.
Opening a drawer.
Taking an envelope.
The footage looked real.
The date was three months earlier.
News reports claimed Grace had copied trust documents long before Camille planted evidence.
Damian watched it twice.
Grace’s face drained.
“That never happened.”
“I know.”
“You can’t.”
“I know.”
“What if they believe it?”
“I don’t care.”
Grace’s eyes flashed.
“You should.”
Damian looked at her.
“If Gabriel makes me look like a criminal, that hurts you.”
“If he makes me look like a thief, that hurts Noah.”
“You can’t protect us by refusing to question things.”
Damian’s expression softened.
“You’re right.”
They examined the footage frame by frame.
Grace noticed something.
Her uniform.
Three months earlier, the Hawthorne household uniforms had dark blue cuffs.
The woman in the video wore white cuffs.
Cole zoomed closer.
The face looked like Grace.
But the ears were wrong.
A digital deepfake combined with body-double footage.
They proved it.
But the damage was done.
Public opinion had turned.
Grace began receiving threats.
She offered to leave the estate.
Damian refused.
“I won’t make Gabriel’s lie true.”
“Staying here makes me a target.”
“You already are.”
Grace looked toward Noah.
“That’s what scares me.”
Damian lowered his voice.
“Grace.”
She turned.
“You protected Noah when I wasn’t here.”
“I will protect you now.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t need a mafia boss protecting me.”
Something flickered in his eyes.
“What do you need?”
“A father who stays alive.”
The answer silenced him.
That night, someone mailed Grace a photograph of her younger sister in Milwaukee.
On the back:
EVERY NANNY HAS A FAMILY.
Grace immediately showed Damian.
No secrets.
Not anymore.
Cole traced the package.
It came from an apartment registered to Gabriel’s foundation.
Police entered.
They found a body.
A man Grace recognized.
Camille’s assistant.
But beside him was something far more dangerous.
A list.
Every person scheduled to testify against Gabriel.
At the top:
GRACE MILLER.
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Beside her name were two words.
FIRST TARGET.
