Chapter 10 - MARCUS DIDN’T KILL LEO TO TAKE POWER—HE KILLED HIM TO KEEP ME IN IT
Marcus had arranged Leo’s murder.
That was eventually established through evidence, not confession alone.
Financial records.
Surveillance payments.
A surviving intermediary.
Old messages.
Vehicle logs.
And one protected witness who had spent three years believing Marcus would eventually find him.
But the major twist was why.
I expected greed.
Control.
Maybe revenge.
The truth was worse because Marcus believed he had saved me.
Twenty years earlier, Patrick tried to dismantle the Riley criminal network by cooperating with federal authorities.
The operation collapsed when someone inside law enforcement leaked his identity.
Patrick escaped.
My grandfather responded by tightening control.
Marcus was twenty-two then.
Young.
Ambitious.
Devoted to my grandfather.
He watched the family almost destroy itself after Patrick vanished.
He formed one conviction:
Riley men leaving made everyone vulnerable.
Years later, Leo discovered Patrick alive.
Leo wanted to take both of us out of the remaining criminal businesses.
He told Marcus.
Marcus panicked.
Not because Leo wanted the chair.
Because he didn't.
Marcus believed if Leo persuaded me to leave too, rival crews would attack, employees would lose livelihoods, old crimes would surface, and the Riley empire would collapse.
So he did what our world had always rewarded.
He removed the destabilizing problem.
Leo.
Then he gave me rival names.
He understood my grief.
Knew I would retaliate.
Every act of revenge pulled me deeper into leadership.
Marcus did not kill my brother so he could become boss.
He killed Leo so I would never stop being one.
Three earlier clues changed meaning.
How quickly Marcus identified Leo’s killers.
Why Emily’s pregnancy became dangerous immediately after Leo learned about it.
And why Marcus panicked at the wolf coin.
Patrick alive meant Leo might have left evidence.
Lily alive meant the next generation existed outside Marcus’s control.
And me learning both truths meant the structure Marcus spent twenty years preserving could finally end.
I confronted Patrick too.
“You knew Marcus was dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“You let Leo investigate him.”
“I told Leo to walk away.”
“He didn't.”
“No.”
“Why didn't you warn me?”
Patrick looked at me.
“Would you have believed the father who abandoned you over the man who raised an empire beside you?”
I hated him for being right.
Then he said:
“I protected you by disappearing.”
I looked at him.
“No.”
He stopped.
“You protected your plan by disappearing.”
That landed.
“Maybe you believed it kept us alive.”
I continued.
“But Leo and I grew up inside the thing you left behind.”
May you like
Patrick lowered his eyes.
For the first time, nobody in the room was allowed to call abandonment protection and end the conversation there.
