Leo was sleeping soundly with warm company, utterly content.
But over in the Long Island villa in New York, the trio waiting for news had sat through the night until the faint light of dawn crept over the horizon.
The sunrise, once a symbol of hope, had become torment for them.
They wished the night could last forever, but deep down, all three knew—they had failed.
Samuel looked decades older overnight. He turned to Alfred and asked wearily,
"Still no word from your family's spies?"
Alfred's eyes were sunken, his face drawn with exhaustion, the elegance of an East Coast noble long gone.
He shook his head with a heavy sigh.
"No. Any word from Maxim?"
Sending Douglas MacArthur's men had been Samuel's idea.
Naturally, the troops came from the Far East command, under Maxim's control, with Samuel serving as liaison.
But since 4 a.m., Maxim's phone had gone dead.
Samuel had a dreadful feeling—Maxim must have realized the plan had failed and fled.
He was right.
Maxim, with his solid military instincts, bolted from Little Rock, Arkansas the moment the assault team failed to report success.
He didn't dare go near the last airfield, instead using the secret escape route the MacArthur family had prepared.
He drove straight to the coast.
Though he hadn't slept and was no young man, Maxim felt no fatigue—only fear.
Even with four armored vehicles surrounding his car, he couldn't relax.
Because Leo was terrifying. Maxim was scared out of his wits.
His brother Douglas had dispatched the four finest combat teams he possessed to ensure Leo's death.
But those elite units—each man a decorated soldier—were wiped out with alarming ease.
Two explanations existed:
Either Leo's forces were absurdly strong, crushing the MacArthur elites like eggs against stone;
or Leo had known of their plan all along and laid a trap for them.
Either way—whether outmatched or betrayed—Maxim knew he was no longer safe.
Before, Leo's killings had followed rules: counterattacks, dealing with traitors, or final reckonings.
But this assassination attempt broke every political rule in the book, giving Leo full justification to strike back.
After going all-in and losing everything, Maxim no longer cared about his allies. Escape was all that mattered.
If he could reach the sea, he could sail to Cuba and from there fly east to join his brother Douglas.
"Are we there yet?"
Maxim glanced nervously around, sitting up straight at every intersection as if bracing for an ambush.
"Sir, we're halfway there," his driver said cautiously. "But these armored cars are too eye-catching. If we take a side road quietly, it'll be like finding a needle in a haystack for anyone chasing us."
"Shut up. You don't get to speak."
Of course Maxim knew what would be safer. But he trusted no one—not even his driver.
What if the man was a traitor, planning to hand him over to Leo?
So he stuck to his plan.
As dawn brightened and traffic thickened, Maxim grew even more paranoid.
He stared at every passing car, terrified one might suddenly stick a "Chicago typewriter" out the window.
He'd learned from James's assassination—he carried spare fuel, refused to stop at gas stations, and even relieved himself inside the car.
At last, he reached the rocky shoreline where a speedboat awaited him.
Beyond, on the open sea, a larger vessel was standing by.
Relieved, Maxim bid farewell to his driver and guards and stepped over the rocks.
Just as he was about to board, thwip—a dull crack split the air.
The soldiers and driver spun toward the sound, shocked to see a blue speedboat offshore that hadn't been there before.
By the time they turned back, Maxim MacArthur—the brother of the famed five-star general, the self-styled "American Emperor's" spokesman—was lying dead beside the boat, blood seeping from a bullet hole in his forehead.
Such precision could only belong to Joseph.
From the moment MacArthur's Far East troops landed in America, Leo's nationwide network—his Mafia informants—had been reporting their every move.
After all, you couldn't expect soldiers fresh from the battlefield to resist earthly temptations.
And nearly every woman with "technical skills" in America shared the same employer: the Mafia.
Why were these gangsters so loyal?
Because Leo had changed their lives.
He gave those who once lived off scraps from their bosses' tables real jobs—as union workers.
The pay wasn't high, but it was steady, respectable, and with the occasional side hustle, comfortable.
To them, Leo wasn't just a benefactor—he was an idol.
Who wouldn't admire a man their age who was both a war hero and the richest man alive?
Leo often joked: "If Hoover can find them, so can I.
And if Hoover can't—I still can."
When Leo learned that MacArthur had sent troops to America, combining the intel from Jessie, he quickly guessed their purpose—and who led them.
It could only be Douglas MacArthur's representative in the U.S.—his brother Maxim.
Leo knew Douglas too well. The self-proclaimed emperor was generous in appearance, but stingy to the bone.
As for Joseph's deadly accuracy—it came from Mafia intel once again.
To ensure secrecy, Maxim hadn't used family channels to arrange his escape.
He'd hired a local boating company to station a speedboat daily in that rocky cove.
Unfortunately, two of the company's skippers belonged to an Italian family tied to the Mafia.
They'd bragged to their uncles that they were waiting for someone "very important."
That information soon reached Leo's intelligence center in California—equipped with ten computers.
At first, it seemed trivial. But when new intel came in, analysts connected the dots:
The coastal city was the nearest escape point to Little Rock, home of the MacArthur family.
Joseph, ever reliable, didn't wait to ambush Maxim at home.
He had multiple tails following the convoy and two armed teams running parallel on nearby roads.
They didn't strike until they confirmed Maxim's route matched the analysis.
Leo's orders were clear:
"No pointless losses. Don't risk lives if you don't have to."
That's why his men would die for him—because Leo treated them like human beings.
Maxim was dead, but Joseph's work wasn't done.
These two days after the war's end had been his busiest.
"Good thing Corondo's back," he muttered over the sea breeze. "Otherwise I'd be dead from exhaustion.
He's probably finished his end too."
—
Boston, one of North America's oldest colonies, still bore its colonial architecture.
Though new skyscrapers were rising, the city's historic core was protected.
The grand Georgian buildings of the 18th century housed Boston's oldest institutions—symbols of heritage, not necessarily of wealth.
United Fruit Company's headquarters sat in one such building.
Now, inside its third-floor conference room, a heated argument erupted.
"Jefferson Coolidge, we need an explanation!"
An elderly board member slammed his fist on the table.
"Because of your decisions, fifty years of United Fruit's operations in Central America are gone!
Our plantations, once invaluable, are now being sold for pennies to those backwater landlords we used to look down on.
We don't even know if we still control the railways there!
You're responsible!"
Jefferson Coolidge, the chairman, wiped the spittle off his face and, without a word, stood up—
—and slapped the old man so hard he fell to the floor.
Coolidge glared coldly at the groaning former vice chairman and said to the stunned board,
"It was in this very room that you all pushed me.
You said Leo's current success was just temporary—just because of America's failure in the Far East.
You told me the real winners would be us—because we had the atomic bomb.
You said it was the perfect time to buy in!"
He kicked the fallen old man again.
"I disagreed, and YOU insisted!
You said Leo was finished—that if his rivals took his businesses in Central America, we'd never compete with Morgan, DuPont, and the Wall Street sharks!"
The old man looked up, eyes full of grievance, but before he could speak, Coolidge kicked him again—knocking him out cold.
That shut everyone up.
No one dared meet Coolidge's furious gaze.
Satisfied, he nodded slowly.
"This strategy wasn't wrong," he declared. "The real problem was the Dulles brothers.
We misjudged them.
They were supposed to manage our Central American operations.
But they've been pocketing our annual $1 million military investment.
Today's main agenda is to kick those two traitors out of United Fruit."
Every director's eyes widened.
No wonder Coolidge had become chairman—his shamelessness was unmatched.
Everyone knew—the fallen vice chairman and the Dulles brothers were his closest allies.
None of them would have dared propose buying out Leo without Coolidge's nod.
And everyone also knew exactly whose pocket that missing million had ended up in.
Yet here he was, clean as a whistle, using this fiasco to purge potential rivals.
Shameless? Beyond measure.
But though the board hated his guts, no one wanted to end up like the unconscious vice chairman—or the soon-to-be-exiled Dulles brothers.
So, the board voted unanimously in favor.
Coolidge was a cunning fox.
With his rivals ousted, he redistributed their assets among the remaining members.
Everyone got a slice of the pie.
They all knew United Fruit was becoming the Coolidge family's private empire—
but as long as the dividends kept coming, who cared?
The meeting lasted all afternoon.
By sunset, Coolidge finally returned to his Boston mansion.
His wife and children awaited him.
But as he stepped into the dining hall, he noticed something odd—
the food on the table had been cooked by his wife herself.
Surprised, he smiled.
"What's the occasion? I can't remember the last time you cooked."
His wife gave a wry smile.
"I thought I'd remind you what my cooking tastes like.
Otherwise, you'll only remember the flavors from your other houses."
Coolidge's anger flared, but seeing his children's hopeful faces, he forced a smile.
"All right then. Let's see if your cooking can beat the chefs from my other homes."