Chapter 7 - The Confrontation
Dean Mercer was sitting on the stained fabric sofa in his undershirt, a half-empty glass of whiskey in his hand and a plate of cold takeout on the coffee table.
When the door exploded open, he jumped up, spilling his drink across his chest. "What the hell—!"
He reached reflexively toward the side cushion of the couch where a black snub-nosed revolver lay half-hidden under a newspaper.
Before his fingers could touch the paper, Wyatt was across the room.
Wyatt’s hand closed around Dean’s throat like a hydraulic press. He lifted the younger, leaner man completely off his feet and slammed him back against the wall, pinning him six inches above the floorboards. Dean’s eyes bugged out, his legs kicking wildly in the air as he clawed at Wyatt’s massive wrists, but Wyatt’s arm didn't even tremble.
Jonah stepped through the shattered door frame, holding the black umbrella down at his side like a walking stick. He walked into the apartment with the calm, casual demeanor of a man inspecting a rental property he was considering demolishing.
Stella stepped in behind him, clutching Jonah’s dark coat around her thin shoulders.
Dean’s frantic eyes darted from Wyatt to the man in the bespoke suit, and finally to Stella standing in the doorway. "Stella...?" he choked out through his crushed windpipe. "What... what did you do...?"
Jonah walked over to the couch, picked up the snub-nosed revolver by its barrel using a handkerchief from his pocket, checked the cylinder, and casually tossed it into a metal trash can near the kitchen sink. It hit the bottom with a loud, metallic clang.
"Put him down, Wyatt," Jonah said.
Wyatt released his grip. Dean dropped to the floor in a heap, coughing violently, gasping for air as he rubbed his reddened neck.
"Who the hell are you?" Dean gasped, looking up with a mixture of terror and white-hot rage. "Stella, who are these guys? Did you steal the money?!"
Jonah took a step forward, standing directly over Dean. "The money was delivered, Mercer. Fifty thousand dollars. Rain-soaked. Delivered by a woman who could barely stand because you used her ribs to stop your fall."
Dean’s jaw worked silently as the realization struck him like a bucket of ice water. The expensive suit. The quiet, deadly authority. The massive security man.
"Mr... Mr. Pierce?" Dean stammered, his bravado evaporating instantly into pathetic terror. "I... I didn't... she fell! She’s fragile, Boss, she trips over her own feet! I never laid a hand on her—"
Jonah’s foot swung out in a short, devastatingly fast arc.
His polished dress shoe caught Dean square in the sternum. The impact knocked Dean backward across the floorboards until he slammed into the base of the very same cast-iron radiator Stella had struck hours earlier.
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Dean let out a high-pitched, pathetic shriek of pain, curling into a fetal ball as he clutched his chest.
"Don't lie to me," Jonah said, his voice dropping into a register so low and dangerous it made the hair on Stella's arms stand up. "I saw the prints on her arm. I counted five fingers. I know your work, Mercer. And I know what you are."
