Chapter 9
The bright, natural sunlight pouring through the massive windows caught the sudden, violent movement. Andre Sterling, realizing his life was measured in seconds, abandoned all pretense of submission. With a feral roar, the forty-five-year-old capo surged up from the marble floor.
He didn't run for the doors; he knew he would be gunned down instantly. His only desperate, impossible chance was to take the Boss hostage.
Andre lunged directly at Darius.
He moved with the heavy, blunt force of a desperate man, swinging a wild, haymaker punch aimed squarely at Darius’s jaw, intending to knock the younger man unconscious.
The capos and bodyguards around the room instinctively reached for their weapons, but Darius raised a single, commanding hand, freezing them in their tracks. He did not need their help.
Darius’s reaction was a masterclass in lethal, calculated violence. He did not flinch. His cold, intimidating eyes tracked the incoming strike with terrifying clarity.
With a fluid, deeply masculine grace, Darius stepped smoothly to the inside of the punch. He raised his left forearm, executing a bone-jarring block that deflected Andre’s heavy arm away. The impact resounded loudly in the vast, empty space.
Before Andre could recover his balance from the missed strike, Darius pivoted sharply on his polished leather shoes. Engaging the immense power of his muscular core, Darius drove a devastating, explosive right hook directly into Andre’s ribs.
The sickening crunch of shattering bone echoed through the hall.
Andre gasped, all the air violently expelled from his lungs. His dark, ebony face contorted in absolute agony as his knees buckled. But Darius was not finished.
With his cousin bent forward from the body blow, Darius grabbed Andre by the lapels of his expensive tailored suit. With raw, terrifying strength, Darius lifted the older man slightly off the ground and hurled him backward.
Andre flew through the air, crashing brutally onto the heavy reception table where Malik’s hearing aid had been destroyed just moments before. The thick wooden table cracked under his weight. Champagne bottles and crystal glasses shattered into a thousand glittering pieces, raining down over his bruised and bleeding body.
Andre rolled off the table, hitting the marble floor with a heavy, wet thud. He lay there, coughing up blood, entirely incapacitated by a man who had barely broken a sweat.
Darius stood over him, his chest rising and falling in slow, measured breaths. His thick, wavy dark hair was still perfectly slicked back, the loose strands over his forehead barely disturbed by the brief, brutal altercation. He adjusted the cuffs of his shirt, the artistic tattoos on his hands flexing as he looked down at the broken traitor.
"You always were too slow, Andre," Darius murmured, his voice a low, gravelly hum that resonated with absolute superiority. "You built a plot to kill a king, but you forgot how to fight."
Andre wheezed, clutching his shattered ribs, his arrogant facade completely destroyed. The bright, cinematic lighting offered no place to hide his profound humiliation and defeat.
"Kill me," Andre choked out, spitting blood onto the pristine floor. "Just get it over with, Darius."
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Darius crouched down gracefully, resting his forearms on his knees, bringing his handsome, angular face incredibly close to his bleeding cousin.
"I am not going to kill you," Darius whispered, his cold eyes unblinking. "Not yet."
