Chapter 85: If Your Biology Was Powerful Enough
The oppressive silence inside the grand hall of the Boren estate was broken only by the sound of boots scraping against the polished stone floor. A suffocating wave of dominant Mafia Alpha pheromones poured from the center of the room, so dense and toxic that the air itself felt heavy to breathe.
Notorious Bellero Boren stood with his hands locked behind his back, his stark white hair gleaming under the overhead lights. His sharp, calculating features were twisted into a mask of pure, murderous rage. Arranged in a rigid, trembling line before him were the three elite syndicate hitmen he had deployed to the lower sector road the previous day: Tobby, Fred, and Denmark.
Bellero took a slow, agonizingly quiet step toward them, his golden eyes narrowing into lethal slits. "I am going to ask this exactly once," he began, his deep, gravelly voice dropping into a terrifyingly calm register that carried the absolute promise of an execution. "Which one of you pathetic, blind fools pulled the trigger and shot Jannah Nenth instead of putting that high-caliber bullet through Dorrent Grefo’s S-tier skull?"
None of them spoke. Tobby stared fixedly at the floor, a cold sweat breaking out across his forehead. Fred’s jaw clenched tightly, his chest heaving under his tactical gear, while Denmark remained completely frozen, his breath hitching in his throat. A suffocating, desperate silence stretched across the grand hall as they refused to betray each other, knowing the brutal price of failure in the Boren syndicate.
The lack of an immediate answer hit Bellero’s volatile temper like a spark into a powder keg. His golden eyes completely swamped with a violent fire as he slammed his fist violently against the conference table, shattering the polished wooden corner into splinters.
"Answer me!" Bellero roared, his voice a deafening, demonic boom that rattled the heavy glass fixtures of the hall. He took a predatory stride forward, his massive frame towering over the three men as his underworld aura crushed the space around them. "Your silent defiance warns me that you do not value your pathetic lives! Let me make the structural rules of this family perfectly clear to you right now—you won’t like the consequences of this mistake at all. You are going to face absolute death for this botched contract! And whoever among you manages to survive the punishment I am going to unleash must immediately bring Jannah to me, , and kill that bastard Dorrent Grefo!"
"No one is hunting Dorrent, nor will anyone abduct Jannah!"
The doors of the grand hall were violently kicked open, slamming against the walls as Damian Boren stormed into the room, his white lab coat thrown over his shoulders, his face a mask of fury. He aggressively bypassed the armed guards stationed at the perimeter, marching straight into the center of the hall to interrupt his father’s lethal decree.
"How many damn times do I have to tell you to stay out of this matter entirely, Father?!" Damian shouted, his eyes flashing with an equal Alpha heat as he stood face-to-face with the Mafia dictator. He planted his shoes firmly on the stone floor, his chest heaving with an intense, long-standing resentment. "How many times must I warn you that your primitive, reckless use of force is completely destroying everything I have spent years building in those slums? Your mindless violence nearly killed the exact girl you claim to protect!"
Bellero let out a mocking scoff, his face hardening into an expression of cold, paternal disdain as he looked down at his son. "You do not stand under my roof and teach me how to deal with this matter, Damian! I have run this syndicate with blood and iron since before your lungs ever drew breath. Your soft, pathetic methods have yielded absolutely nothing. Since it seems you are making zero actual progress with your saintly neighborhood doctor routine, the universe has forced my hand. My sources just informed me that Jannah is no longer inside the hospital. She has been moved under a private home care contract inside Guron Grefo’s estate. She is sitting directly in their grasp while you stand here weeping over ethics!"
"I am fully aware of where she is!" Damian fired right back, his voice dropping into a defensive tone that cut through his father’s booming authority. "And unlike you, I actually have a precise, calculated plan to fix this disaster. I am going to get Jannah back by my side without struggling, without triggering a war, and without using a single drop of forceful means at all. Her grandfather Duro is the key, and her own willingness will bring her to me once her ribs are healed. I will make her choose me!"
"You naive, foolish boy," Bellero whispered, a dark, cynical smirk curling his lips as he shook his head in disgust. "There is absolutely no other way to secure our bloodline’s future than using forceful, absolute means—especially when you are dealing with an aggressive, possessive S-tier monster like Dorrent Grefo. He doesn’t understand diplomacy, Damian. He only understands the language of a bullet."
The old Mafia boss turned his back on his son, his eyes locking back onto the three trembling hitmen with a chilling finality. He raised his hand, signaling his next-in-command, Jared, who was waiting in the shadows with a squad of heavy-duty enforcers.
"Take them downstairs," Bellero commanded, his voice flat and unyielding as he pointed a finger at Tobby, Fred, and Denmark. "Hang them up by their wrists in the basement chamber. Tie all three of them up and beat them within an inch of their pathetic lives if no one is willing to step forward and confess to pulling the trigger. And whoever among them survives the interrogation... they must use whichever brutal, underhanded means they know to permanently get Dorrent Grefo out of the picture. Erase him from this city."
"Yes, Boss," Jared grunted, his men instantly rushing forward with heavy iron chains, violently grabbing the three hitmen by their shoulders and dragging them out of the hall toward the underground cells.
Bellero adjusted his expensive silk cuffs, completely ignoring the chaotic scraping of boots and chains as he began walking slowly toward the exit of the room, intending to leave the conversation.
"Stop this right now, father!" Damian shouted at his father’s retreating back, his fists clenching so tightly his knuckles turned white, his Mafia pheromones expanding into a desperate, furious cloud that rattled the air. "Why the hell are you always thinking of killing people to solve your problems?! Why must every single solution in your mind involve shedding blood and destroying lives?!"
Bellero stopped dead in his tracks right at the threshold of the grand hall.
A terrifyingly dark stillness settled over his massive shoulders as he slowly turned his head around. His sharp, wrinkled features were completely swamped by an ancient, unresolved grief and a blinding rage that had rotted his soul for decades. He locked his burning golden eyes directly onto Damian’s tensed jaw, shouting back with a roaring rasp that echoed through the entire mansion like a curse:
"Because maybe if you were an Enigma, Damian... maybe if your primitive biology was powerful enough to inherit this empire without my protection, I wouldn’t be forced to turn into a cold-blooded killer just to secure your future!"
