Chapter 138 - The Covenant of Tenth Avenue
Marcus didn't deny it. He looked down at the faded black-and-white print, his expression unreadable as the rail car crossed into the subterranean tunnels beneath Brooklyn.
"Your father raised me after my family burned out on 43rd Street, Elena," Marcus said quietly. "Julian and I slept in the same bedroom above the kitchen. We shared the same winter coats. We washed dishes at the same double sink."
"And you never told me?" The betrayal burned hot in my throat. "I spent twenty years wiping tables, wondering why my father sacrificed his life while you rose to rule the city, and you were his foster son the whole time?"
"Your father made me swear on his life before the prison van took him away," Marcus said, stepping closer to me, his voice raw with an ancient, suppressed grief. "He said, *'Marcus, Julian's soul is rotten with ambition, but Elena's hands are clean. If she finds out what Julian did, she will try to fight him, and he will crush her like an insect. Keep her out of it until the day Julian comes for the diner himself.'*"
"He was protecting you, Elena," Anna said softly, her pale hand resting on my wrist. "Marcus paid off your father’s creditors every single month for twenty years through a dummy corporation. He made sure the city never raised your property taxes. He stationed men two blocks away every single night of your life."
"I didn't ask for a guardian angel with blood on his hands!" I snapped, tears burning my eyes.
"No, you didn't," Marcus agreed, his voice deadly steady. "You earned it. Because when my world collapsed three days ago, when Pendelton’s butchers took my wife and hunted my daughter through five inches of blizzard, Sophia didn't run to my lieutenants. She didn't run to our safehouses. She ran to 412 Tenth Avenue. She ran to the woman who wore the same apron her grandfather used to wear."
The rail car slowed, screeching to a halt at a dark maintenance spur beneath an industrial crane in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Above us, the heavy metal roll-up doors opened, revealing five armored SUVs and twenty of Marcus’s most loyal soldiers standing in defensive formation.
"Boss," one of the lieutenants said, stepping forward with an encrypted tablet. "Julian Mercer just went live on all state television networks. He’s speaking from the executive briefing room at 633 Third Avenue."
Marcus stepped off the rail car and took the tablet. Anna and I crowded behind him.
On the screen, my brother stood behind a podium bearing the Great Seal of the State of New York. His hair was meticulously parted, his tie was straight, and his eyes were glistening with performative sorrow.
*"Tonight,"* Julian announced into the bank of microphones, *"state law enforcement units intercepted an attempt by organized crime figures to compromise state assets in Manhattan. We have secured the scene. But it is with profound sorrow that I must announce an emergency warrant for the arrest of Marcus Vance... and my estranged sister, Elena Mercer, who has aided and abetted this international conspiracy."*
The ticker across the bottom of the screen flashed in bright red letters:
*BREAKING: GOVERNOR ISSUES TERRORISM AND EXTORTION WARRANTS FOR VANCE SYNDICATE; DINER NAMED AS HEADQUARTERS.*
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"He’s cutting the last thread," I whispered, feeling the walls of the world closing in. "He just put targets on all our backs."
"No," Marcus said, handing the tablet back to his lieutenant. "He just told us exactly where he is."
