Chapter 6 - The Visitor in the Dark
Time moved with agonizing, liquid slowness in the dark bedroom.
One o'clock passed.
Two o'clock.
At precisely two-seventeen in the morning, the heavy brass lock on the bedroom door made a microscopic, lubricated click.
The door swung open half an inch. A faint sliver of warm yellow light from the hallway cut across the dark hardwood floor, stopping just short of the massive king-sized bed.
Victor lay on his back, his head tilted sideways against the pillow, his chest rising and falling in deep, slow, rhythmic intervals that perfectly faked the posture of a man trapped in deep, chemical-induced unconsciousness.
Footsteps—soft, deliberate, stepping on the balls of expensive leather shoes—moved across the carpet.
Julian Moretti stepped into the room.
He wore a dark coat over his tailored trousers. In his left hand, he held a small, dark glass eyedropper bottle. In his right pocket, his hand rested near the heavy casing of his antique gold pocket watch.
Julian stood beside the bed for a long moment, looking down at Victor in the dark. A dark, gloating smile stretched across his face in the faint hall light.
"Three years, Victor," Julian whispered softly to the dark room, his voice a quiet, venomous snake. "Three years of watching you slowly lose your mind. You were always the golden child. The brilliant leader. Father loved you. The family worshipped you. And you didn't even notice when I started dropping Zurich’s finest neurotoxin into your nightstand."
Julian unscrewed the dark cap of the small dropper bottle. He stepped over to the nightstand, reached out toward the crystal water pitcher, and prepared to drop three dark drops into the fresh liquid.
Click.
The sound did not come from Julian’s pocket watch.
It was the unmistakable, razor-sharp sound of a handgun slide being pulled back and locked into place in the dark three feet behind his head.
Julian froze instantly. The small dropper bottle slipped from his fingers, bouncing harmlessly off the thick rug.
"You should have used a quieter watch, Julian," Victor’s voice came out of the darkness.
It was not the raspy, weak, broken tone of an exhausted man. It was the loud, icy, terrifying baritone of a predator that had stepped out of the shadows.
The bedside lamp flashed on.
Brilliant, blinding light flooded the room.
Julian spun around, his face instantly turning a ghostly, horrific white.
Victor was sitting up on the edge of the bed. He was fully dressed in a black shirt and trousers. In his hand, held completely steady without a single tremor, was the black steel barrel of the Sig Sauer P320, pointed directly between Julian’s eyes.
"V-Victor..." Julian stammered, his hands flying into the air, his chest heaving in sudden, frantic panic. "What... what are you doing? I... I just came to check on you—"
"Drop the bottle," Victor commanded softly.
Julian looked down at the dark glass vial sitting on the rug near his shoe. His jaw worked uselessly, his arrogant, gloating composure collapsing into complete, pathetic terror.
"Pick it up," Victor said, his voice dropping another octave. "And drink it."
"Victor, please!" Julian gasped, falling to his knees, his hands raised high. "It’s... it’s medicine! It’s just a supplement—"
"Drink it, Julian!" Victor roared, his voice echoing off the walls like thunder. "Drink the three years of hell you served me every night at two in the morning!"
Julian burst into desperate, sobbing tears, burying his face in his hands against the floorboards. "Don't kill me... please, Victor! It was Dominic Vance! He paid me! He offered me the North Docks if I cleared you out of the chair without a war!"
May you like
Victor looked down at his kneeling cousin—at the pathetic, broken coward who had spent thirty-six months systematically destroying his mind from within.
"Dominic Vance didn't walk into my bedroom every night, Julian," Victor said, stepping off the bed, his heavy leather boots coming to a halt inches from Julian’s face. "You did."
