Chapter 7 - The Master of the House
At 2:45 AM, the main electricity to the second floor cut out with a dull metallic thunk.
Emergency floor lights flickered on, casting long, bloody red ribbons of light across the white marble floors.
Marcus Vance stepped off the elevator on the second floor, his silenced 9mm held low at his side. He wore black tactical clothing and night-vision goggles pushed up onto his forehead. Behind him stepped two of his hired guards, armed with short-barreled carbines.
"Check the boy's room first," Marcus whispered to his men. "Quietly. Use the gas canister on the ventilation intake."
The guards nodded and moved down the corridor toward Eli’s bedroom.
Marcus turned toward the end of the hall, walking slowly toward Gabriel’s private library. The oak double doors were slightly ajar. A single lamp burned inside, casting a warm yellow square of light onto the dark hallway runner.
Marcus pushed the door open with the barrel of his gun.
"Gabriel?" Marcus called out softly, maintaining his smooth, professional tone. "We had an alarm trigger on the lower generator. I came up to secure you."
Sitting in the massive high-backed leather chair behind the oak desk was Gabriel Marlowe.
His back was turned to the door, facing the high arched window that looked out over the raging ocean.
"You're late, Marcus," Gabriel said. His voice was steady, calm, and utterly devoid of fear.
Marcus stopped four feet from the desk, his gun raised, pointing directly at the back of the leather chair.
"Late for what, boss?" Marcus asked carefully.
"Late to finish what you started eleven months ago on Pier 4," Gabriel said, turning the leather chair around slowly.
Marcus’s eyes narrowed.
Gabriel was not holding a glass of scotch. He was holding a small handheld monitor. On the screen, a live feed showed the lower mechanical room, where three armed state police officers were currently surrounding Marcus’s two guards near the gatehouse.
"How long?" Marcus asked, his tone dropping the friendly facade entirely.
"Long enough to realize you sold your soul to Richard Hayes for a percentage of dock leases," Gabriel said. "I gave you a home, Marcus. I paid your daughter's medical bills. I trusted you with my family."
Marcus’s face twisted into a mask of bitter contempt. "You gave me scrapings from your table, Gabriel! You built an empire off the waterfront, and you treated me like a glorified doorman. Hayes offered me ten percent of the entire deep-water expansion. That's twenty million dollars."
"You killed Claire for twenty million dollars?" Gabriel asked softly.
"She was in the car!" Marcus hissed. "The bomb was meant for the kid! Hayes wanted you broke and grieving so you’d hand over the terminal control! But you had to lock yourself in this damn mausoleum and surround yourself with cameras!"
"Yes," Gabriel said quietly, standing up behind his desk. "I installed thirty-two cameras, Marcus. And every word you just said was recorded on twenty-four of them, broadcast directly to an off-site server hosted by the United States Attorney’s Office in downtown Boston."
Marcus’s face turned gray. He looked up at the tiny bronze molding near the ceiling.
"You bluffing bastard," Marcus growled.
He raised his pistol to pull the trigger.
Gabriel didn't flinch. He didn't jump behind the desk.
Instead, he reached into his pocket and pressed a single button on his remote transmitter.
The floor beneath Marcus’s feet didn't collapse, but the massive overhead halogen security floodlights—installed in the ceiling sixteen months earlier to illuminate intruders—ignited simultaneously with twenty thousand lumens of blinding white light.
The intense flash exploded in the dark room.
Marcus screamed, blinded instantly as his retinas burned from the sudden glare. He fired two wild shots into the ceiling, the deafening cracks echoing through the library.
Gabriel moved with the speed of his youth on the tough Boston docks. He vaulted over the oak desk, slammed his heavy iron fire poker into Marcus’s wrist, sending the silenced pistol clattering across the floor, and smashed the stun device directly into Marcus’s neck.
Electric voltage surged through Marcus’s body. He convulsed wildly, his eyes rolling back, and collapsed heavily onto the Persian rug.
Gabriel stood over his former friend, gasping for air, the iron poker trembling in his hand.
He looked down at the unconscious man for three seconds.
May you like
"The house is clean," Gabriel whispered to the empty room.
He turned and ran toward the secret bookcase door.
