He Thought I Was Nobody Until My Five Brothers Erased His Empire

At 2:00 PM that afternoon, a sleek black limousine pulled into the underground parking garage of the Moretti Family’s corporate headquarters in the financial district.

The doors opened, and Richard Cole stepped out.

The patriarch of Cole Infrastructure looked as if he had aged twenty years in sixteen hours. His expensive tailored suit hung loosely on his frail frame, his tie was crooked, and his hands shook so badly he could barely keep his balance. Behind him walked Adrian, wearing a plain hoodie pulled low over his face to hide the deep purple bruises on his throat.

Two stone-faced security guards escorted them into a private express elevator.

The lift shot up silently to the 50th floor.

When the doors slid open, they stepped into a vast, minimalist conference room with panoramic glass walls overlooking the city harbor. Sitting at the end of a thirty-foot black marble table was Luca Moretti.

Beside Luca sat Gabriel, and next to Gabriel sat me.

I wore a high-collared black silk dress that covered my neck and shoulders completely. My hair was pulled back into a tight, elegant bun, and my face was calm, serene, and unreadable.

Richard Cole walked toward the table, his knees visibly trembling. He didn't sit down. He couldn't.

"Elena..." Richard rasped, his voice breaking. "Please."

"Sit down, Richard," Luca said, gesturing toward the two leather chairs across from us.

Richard practically collapsed into his chair. Adrian stayed standing behind his father, his eyes fixed on the floorboards, terrified to raise his gaze to mine.

Luca slid a thick staple-bound document across the smooth marble table. It stopped inches from Richard's shaking hands.

"What is this?" Richard asked weakly.

"That," Gabriel said, "is a full, unconditional surrender of all assets, equity, real estate holdings, and commercial rights owned by Cole Infrastructure and the Cole family trust."

Richard stared at the document as if it were a coiled snake. "You're... you're asking us to sign over everything? Forty years of work?"

"We aren't asking, Richard," Luca replied, his tone smooth and razor-sharp. "We're giving you a choice. Option A: You sign that agreement right now. Elena receives ninety percent of the liquidated capital, while the remaining ten percent goes into a severance fund for the twelve hundred construction workers your company abandoned this morning."

"And Option B?" Adrian whimpered from behind his father's chair.

Luca turned his cold blue eyes onto my husband.

"Option B," Luca said softly, "is that I press 'Send' on an email currently sitting in my drafts. That email contains video footage from the ballroom last night, along with sixty-four pages of audited bank records showing your personal involvement in public bribery, money laundering, and grand tax fraud. You and your father will be arrested by federal marshals before you reach the lobby of this building."

Richard’s face went dead white. He looked at his son, then at the document on the table.

"You'll leave us with nothing?" Richard whispered. "Not even the house?"

"The house on the hill has already been placed under federal seizure for back taxes," Gabriel noted calmly. "Your wife is currently packing two bags at the front gate under the supervision of local police."

Richard closed his eyes. A single tear squeezed out, running down the deep wrinkles of his weathered face. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a gold Montblanc pen, and opened the final page of the contract.

"Wait! Dad, don't!" Adrian panicked, grabbing his father's shoulder. "We can fight them! We can hire—"

Richard violently slapped Adrian’s hand away.

"Shut up!" Richard roared, turning on his son with a sudden, desperate fury that rattled the glass walls. "Shut your damn mouth! You ruined us! You brought this on us because you wanted to play the big man with your whip and your mistress! You destroyed everything I built!"