Chapter 9 - The Unwelcome Guest
The heavy corrugated sliding door shuddered violently as someone kicked it from the outside, followed by the sound of hurried footsteps splashing through the puddles in the alley.
Elias didn't even flinch. He didn't draw a weapon; he simply raised his right hand slightly, and the two suits standing near the mahogany desk smoothly stepped into flanking positions, their hands resting inside their coats.
The side pedestrian door flew open, crashing against the concrete wall with a deafening ring.
It wasn't Mitchell.
It was Raymond Vance himself.
His face was flushed a violent, mottled crimson, his heavy overcoat half-buttoned, his eyes wild and desperate like a cornered animal that had finally realized the trap was closing. In his right hand, gripped with a terrifying, unsteadied tremor, was a snub-nosed .38 revolver.
"Elias!" Raymond roared, spitting the name out like a curse as he stumbled into the halogen-lit circle of the warehouse floor. "You think you can gut my life’s work with a stroke of a pen?! You arrogant bastard!"
Elias didn't move an inch. He stood completely still, his hands tucked casually into his coat pockets, looking at Raymond with the detached pity one might reserve for a stray dog barking at a freight train.
"Raymond," Elias sighed, shaking his head slightly. "You really should have stayed in the suburbs. The harbor air doesn't agree with men who don't know how to balance their books."
"Shut your mouth!" Raymond screamed, waving the revolver wildly between Elias and me. His eyes landed on me, and his expression twisted into an mask of pure, unadulterated venom. "And you... you ungrateful little bitch! You brought this on us! You and your worthless brat!"
My heart hammered against my ribs, but my feet didn't move. Years of walking on eggshells in that apartment, years of swallowing my pride, years of watching Daisy tremble in fear had burned every last drop of fear out of my blood.
"You ruined your own family, Raymond," I said, my voice cutting through the damp warehouse air with absolute, crystal-clear calm. "You stole from your partners, you framed a three-year-old child for your daughter’s theft, and you treated your son like a signature on a suicide pact. The only person who destroyed Vance Logistics is standing right there holding a gun he's too cowardly to fire."
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Raymond let out an animalistic roar of rage, his finger tightening convulsively on the trigger of the revolver as he swung the barrel directly toward my chest.
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