Chapter 140: You Want To Dethrone Your Father?

Needed to take over as Don.

Needed access to Antonio’s networks, his resources, his partnerships.

Only then could he infiltrate The Covenant.

Get close enough to destroy them from the inside.

Make them pay for what they’d done to his mother.

But he knows that his father wouldn’t hand over power easily.

Would never willingly give Dimitri the keys to his empire.

Which meant war.

Dimitri pulled up the final file Marco had sent.

Phantom Base.

An offshore facility that didn’t exist on any map.

Owned by his father through Prometheus.

Dimitri stared at the coordinates.

South Pacific. Small island. Privately owned.

Where his father was supposinly spending forty million dollars a quarter on something he couldn’t even document in encrypted files.

Something so illegal, so dangerous, that even his own records didn’t mention it.

Dimitri could imagine what that thing was.

Human experimentation on a scale that would make Prometheus’s test subject logs look tame.

Viral weapons development beyond anything documented in the official research files.

Things Antonio didn’t want anyone...even Dimitri to know about.

His father was a monster.

Dimitri had always known Antonio was ruthless.

Had always known he valued power over people.

But this....

This was something else entirely.

This was systematic evil.

An empire built on human suffering and death.

That had cost his mother her life.

And was still costing lives every day.

Dimitri stood, moved to the window, looked out at the city.

His city.

The empire he’d built in New York while Antonio ruled from Italy.

An empire clean compared to what his father had created.

Dimitri was a monster too. He knew that.

He’d tortured men. Killed men. Built his power on violence and fear.

But he had lines he wouldn’t cross.

Children. Innocents. Biological weapons.

Lines Antonio had crossed decades ago and never looked back.

Dimitri pulled out his phone, called Marco.

"Boss," Marco answered immediately. "Did you....did you read everything?"

"I read it." Dimitri’s voice was cold. Controlled. Absolutely lethal.

"I’m sorry. I know this must be..."

"Don’t," Dimitri cut him off. "I need you to keep investigating. I want to know everything about Prometheus. Every facility. Every employee. Every product. Every crime they’ve committed. Every connection they have to The Covenant."

"Yes, sir. But boss....what are you planning?"

"I’m planning to understand the full scope of my father’s empire." Dimitri’s voice was flat.

"And then?"

"And then I’m going to take it from him."

Silence on the other end.

"You’re going to overthrow him," Marco said quietly. "You’re going to go to war with your own father."

"Yes."

"He won’t give up power without a fight."

"I know."

"It’ll be bloody. Dangerous. He’ll come at you with everything he has."

"I know." Dimitri turned from the window. "Which is why I need to start building now. I need forces in Italy. Resources. Alliances. I need to be strong enough that when I move against him, there’s no question of who wins."

"That’ll take time. Planning. Careful positioning."

"Then we start now." Dimitri’s voice turned absolute. "Keep investigating Prometheus. Find everything. When I move against him, I want evidence so overwhelming that no one in the family questions my right to take over."

"Understood." Marco paused. "And The Covenant?"

"Is why I’m doing this." Dimitri’s voice turned lethal. " And the only way to get to them is through my father’s connections."

"So you take over his position..."

"And then I use his networks to infiltrate The Covenant. Get close enough to destroy them from the inside." Dimitri’s smile was cold and terrible. "They wanted war with my father? They’ll get war with me. And Marco, you know that I’m so much worse than my father when it comes to fighting wars."

Marco was quiet for a long moment.

Then: "What do you need from me?"

"Start reaching out to our contacts in Italy. Quietly. I want to know who’s loyal to Antonio and who might be persuaded to switch sides. I want to know the power structure. The weak points. The leverage we can use."

"That’s going to take weeks. Maybe months."

"Then we have time to do it right." Dimitri moved back to his desk.

"Understood."

Dimitri hung up, sat down at his desk.

Stared at the files still open on his laptop.

His father had built an empire on death, had developed the weapons that killed his wife.

And instead of learning from that, instead of walking away from biological weapons and human experimentation....

He’d doubled down.

Built Phantom Base.

Increased his operations.

Continued profiting from the same evil that had killed his wife.

Dimitri felt something cold and final settle in his chest.

He was going to take everything from him.

The empire. The power. The position.

He was going to strip his father of everything he’d built.

And then he was going to use those resources to destroy The Covenant.

He glanced at the clock.

2:47 AM.

Eve would be waking soon, reaching for him and finding him gone.

He should go back to bed.

Should hold her while he still could.

Because once this war started, once he moved against his father and Covenant, everything would change.

Eve would be in more danger.

Would be targeted by his father.

Would become a weapon both sides tried to use.

Dimitri closed his laptop, stood up and moved quietly down the hall to their bedroom.

Eve was asleep, curled on her side, her hair spread across the pillow.

Beautiful. Perfect. His.

The reason he had to do this.

Because he knows that his father would use her eventually.

Would poison her or threaten her or hurt her to control him.

Just like The Covenant had used Claire to punish Antonio.

The cycle had to end.

Dimitri slipped into bed beside her, pulled her against his chest.

She stirred, mumbled his name, curled into him automatically.

"I’m here," he whispered into her hair. "I’ve got you."

And he’d keep her.

No matter what it cost.

No matter who he had to destroy.

Even if it was his own father.