Chapter 8 - THE BOARD OF SNAKES"Hold onto me tight!" Alejandro barked, scooping Emma up and tucking her inside his heavy leather coat.
He sprinted toward the secondary maintenance hatch just as the main blast door slammed shut with a deafening thud. Heavy smoke began pouring through the ventilation shafts—a toxic gas designed to suffocate anyone caught inside.
Using his heavy-caliber pistol, Alejandro blew the lock off the iron maintenance ladder door. Carrying Emma on his back, he climbed up the narrow shaft, coughing through the rising fumes, until they burst out through a hidden hatch into the main conservatory.
Gasped for fresh air, Emma coughed, hugging his neck. "Are we safe now?"
"Not yet," Alejandro said, his eyes burning with cold fury. "Now we take the fight to them."
Upstairs in the grand boardroom, an emergency assembly of the Moretti Conglomerate’s Board of Directors was already underway. Lucas stood at the head of the long mahogany table, addressing ten wealthy shareholders and family elders.
"My dear board members," Lucas said, wiping a fake tear from his eye. "It is with a heavy heart that I announce my brother Alejandro has suffered severe brain damage from last night’s poisoning. He is paranoid, unstable, and no longer fit to hold the chairmanship. For the survival of our empire, I move to enact Article 14 and transfer full voting power to me immediately."
The board members murmured in agreement, picking up their pens to sign the transfer documents.
BOOM!
The double doors of the boardroom were kicked off their hinges, crashing onto the polished floor.
Alejandro strode into the room, covered in soot, his coat torn, holding Emma securely in his left arm. In his right hand, he held his drawn weapon.
The entire boardroom gasped. Lucas’s face turned ashen, his pen slipping from his fingers.
"A bit premature for a funeral, isn't it, Lucas?" Alejandro’s voice thundered across the room.
"Alejandro!" Lucas stammered, backing away toward the window. "You... you're alive! The guards said—"
"The guards you paid to burn me alive in the basement are dead," Alejandro interrupted coldly. "And your little theater ends today."
Alejandro threw the fireproof folder onto the center of the table. The documents spilled out, displaying the DNA test and his father's secret will for every shareholder to see.
"Elena is our father’s daughter," Alejandro announced. "And this child is a Moretti. Every contract you signed, every asset you tried to steal under the pretense of my incapacitation, is null and void."
The board members erupted into chaos. Several elders stood up, glaring at Lucas in disgust.
Lucas’s polite facade shattered completely. A dark, hysterical laugh bubbled up from his throat.
"You think a piece of paper saves you, brother?" Lucas sneered.
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At that moment, the lights in the boardroom flickered and died. Outside, a violent blizzard slammed into the mountain estate, cutting off all external power and cellular communications.
In the pitch darkness, the heavy sound of assault rifles being cocked echoed from the balcony doors.
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