🫖 The Little Girl Who Warned the Mafia Boss About the Tea

Chapter 06 - The Brother Who Wanted a Throne

The house did not fall easily.

Adrian had designed it that way.

Every corridor narrowed where an ambush might matter. Every window on the lower floor carried glass strong enough to stop bullets. Every staircase could be sealed with hidden steel doors if the right codes were entered.

Dominic knew most of those codes.

Not all.

That was why Adrian kept an old brass switch beneath the wolf painting in his bedroom. His father had installed it before smart locks, before biometric panels, before men started believing everything modern was safer.

Adrian hit the switch.

Somewhere below, the inner gates came down.

Dominic’s phone buzzed immediately.

He glanced at it and cursed.

“You still use the old system?”

“Sentiment,” Adrian said.

“You never had any.”

“You mistook restraint for absence.”

The bedroom became quiet except for distant movement below. Adrian could feel the compound’s residue in his muscles. His body was awake, but not fully his. Dominic knew it and watched him with predatory hope.

“You’ll collapse before this ends,” Dominic said.

“Possibly.”

“And then what? Your housekeeper saves you? Her little girl reads you a bedtime story?”

Adrian’s eyes hardened.

“Do not speak about them.”

Dominic smiled.

“There it is.”

“What?”

“The weakness.” Dominic leaned against the bedpost, gathering confidence from the fact that Adrian had not killed him. “You always said family was liability unless controlled. Now a woman lies to you, sneaks into your home under another name, brings a child under your roof, and you look at her like she’s salvation.”

Adrian said nothing.

Dominic continued.

“Do you know what men will say when they learn a maid’s toddler exposed you? That the great Adrian Moretti was protected by a bedtime story?”

“They’ll say it quietly.”

Dominic laughed.

Then Adrian’s phone rang.

Silas.

Adrian answered on speaker.

“Status.”

“We have Maria and Lily in the music room,” Silas said. “Dominic planted written instructions to frame you if anything happened to them.”

Dominic’s smile vanished.

Silas continued, “Also, you need to know something else. The compound in the tea has a second effect.”

Adrian’s hand tightened.

“Say it.”

“It increases suggestibility under sleep deprivation. If he got you to sign documents after dosing you, a skilled attorney could make them look voluntary.”

“Levine.”

“Yes.”

Dominic’s eyes shifted toward the door.

Adrian ended the call and looked at his brother.

“The authority packet.”

Dominic said nothing.

“How many papers did I sign?”

“You should read before signing.”

Adrian crossed the room so fast Dominic barely lifted his hands before Adrian pinned him against the wall.

For one bright second, the house, the poisoning, the missing years all disappeared. There were only two brothers in a room full of old ghosts.

“You were eight when Father broke your wrist for crying,” Adrian said. “I lied and said I did it because I knew he’d hit me less hard.”

Dominic’s face changed.