201 She Collapsed In Front Of Eleven Mafia Bosses To Expose Her Corrupt Cop Husband—Only To Realize She Was The Mastermind Playing Them All

The second tactical guard collapsed onto the gravel, clutching a shattered kneecap as the heavy boom of the rifle echoed off the granite tombstones from the treeline four hundred yards away.

Arthur Vance didn't miss.

"Get down!" Marcus roared, instinctively reaching for his sidearm—only to realize his holster was empty, stripped during his booking.

Ward didn't scream. She lunged backward toward the open door of the Lincoln, shouting to her driver: "Move! Get us out of here!"

Adeline didn't hesitate. She grabbed the fallen guard's suppressed 9mm pistol from the wet gravel, rolled behind the granite pedestal of Saint Michael’s statue, and brought the weapon up in a two-handed combat grip.

Marcus was already on his feet, diving toward the grass. He looked across the marble steps at Adeline, staring down the black barrel of the suppressed weapon in her hands.

"Addie, don't!" Marcus shouted, holding up both hands, his chest heaving. "Arthur’s in the ridge! If he shoots Ward, the whole DA's office will bury us all!"

"Ward isn't leaving this cemetery with Julian's name in the dirt," Adeline said, her finger tightening against the smooth curve of the trigger.

The Lincoln’s engine roared, tires spitting gravel as the heavy sedan accelerated toward the main gate.

Adeline shifted her aim. She didn't fire at Ward’s window. She fired three rapid, controlled rounds into the Lincoln’s rear passenger tire. The rubber disintegrated with a wet flap, the heavy car fishtailing wildly before slamming sideways into the heavy cast-iron gatepost with a sickening crunch of crushed radiator and shattered glass.

Steam hissed into the rain from the wrecked hood.

Adeline stood up, keeping the weapon trained on Marcus. "Get on your knees, Marcus. Hands behind your head."

Marcus stared at her, breathing hard. The dominance, the physical power he had held over her for three agonizing years, evaporated completely in the gray graveyard light. He slowly lowered himself onto his knees, lacing his fingers behind his skull.

"You're not going to shoot me, Addie," he muttered, though his voice wavered. "You're not a killer."

"No," Adeline said coldly, walking past him toward the wrecked Lincoln without breaking her stride. "I'm the woman who survived you."

Arthur emerged from the treeline, moving with surprising speed for a seventy-year-old man, the scoped Remington hunting rifle slung across his shoulder. Beside him, leaning heavily on a wooden fence post, was Elias, his forehead bleeding from a deep gash, but his eyes blazing with fury.

"Elias," Adeline called out, tossing him the spare magazine from the fallen guard's belt. "Secure the driver. Arthur, check Ward."

Arthur pulled open the crumpled rear door of the Lincoln. Catherine Ward was slumped against the leather seat, dazed from the airbag deployment, blood trickling from a cut above her eyebrow.

Adeline leaned into the shattered window frame, reaching into Ward’s briefcase and pulling out the municipal master file for Pier 44.

"It's over, Catherine," Adeline said. "Arthur has a direct encrypted uplink to the Boston Globe and the Department of Justice field office in New York. Not the Boston field office. New York. By three o'clock, every offshore routing number Eleanor Vance used to build the South Pier will be on the front page of every paper on the eastern seaboard."

Ward looked up, her vision clearing, her composure finally crumbling into raw, unadulterated panic.

"You don't understand what she will do, Adeline," Ward gasped, clutching her bruised ribs. "Eleanor doesn't negotiate. She will burn Pier 44 to the water before she lets you expose her."