Chapter 7 - The Reckoning
The four guards around the perimeter hesitated, their weapons wavering, terrified to make a move under Claire’s lethal precision.
“Kill them!” Julian screamed, his arrogant composure finally shattering as blood dripped from his shattered wrist onto the pristine glass table. “Shoot them both!”
Before the guards could raise their barrels, I squeezed the trigger on my MP5.
Three short bursts echoed through the conservatory.
Tak-tak-tak! Tak-tak-tak!
The three guards near the pillars collapsed onto the marble floor, their weapons clattering uselessly against the stone. Claire pivoted smoothly on her heel, firing two rounds straight into the fourth guard’s chest before he could raise his weapon.
Within four seconds, the room belonged entirely to us.
Dominic fell to his knees beside the glass table, weeping hysterically, holding his hands up in absolute surrender.
“Marcus! Please!” Dominic sobbed, tears streaming down his face. “I was desperate! They were going to break my legs! Julian promised me nobody would get hurt! Please, Marcus, we’re brothers! We have the same blood!”
I walked slowly up to my brother, stopping two feet from where he knelt.
I pulled my suppressed pistol from my shoulder holster and looked down at him.
“You stood at my wife’s grave three years ago, Dom,” I whispered, my voice trembling with profound, buried grief. “You held Emma in your arms when she couldn't speak. And then you sold her out for a casino debt.”
“Marcus, please—”
“You’re not my brother anymore,” I said softly.
I swung the heavy steel butt of my pistol across his jaw with all the force in my body.
Dominic collapsed onto his side, knocked stone-cold unconscious, his bleeding lip resting against the carpet.
I turned around to face Julian Vance.
Julian was backing away toward the massive glass window overlooking the lake thirty-four floors below, holding a blood-soaked napkin against his shattered wrist, his face pale with sheer terror.
Claire stepped up beside me, her Glock still leveled at his heart.
“Your Cayman accounts are frozen, Julian,” Claire said calmly. “The federal prosecutor in Chicago just received an anonymous digital transmission containing every wire log, every illegal weapons manifest, and every offshore asset tied to Vanguard Logistics.”
Julian looked out the glass window behind him. Down on the street thirty-four floors below, blue and red emergency lights were flashing through the dark rain—dozens of FBI and federal tactical vehicles pulling up to seal the building.
“It’s over, Julian,” Claire said softly. “You can spend the rest of your life in a supermax facility, or you can jump.”
Julian looked at Claire’s cold, unyielding face. He looked at me.
He saw no mercy. No compromise. No escape.
May you like
Slowly, Julian sank into a chair, dropping his head into his bloody hands as federal agents slammed open the service doors behind us, weapons drawn, yelling for everyone to drop their arms.
Claire and I set our weapons down on the glass table, standing side by side in the middle of the storm.
