Chapter 17 - The Table Turns
The lead agent looked from Gabriel’s steady, unblinking eyes up to the second-story window where Beatrice stood like an avenging statue, the small yellow flame dancing near the open pane.
A distinct, pungent odor of sulfur and mercaptan drifted down into the damp alley air. It wasn't a bluff. The scent was suffocating.
"Down!" Gabriel roared, his voice cracking with sudden, overwhelming command. "Put the weapons on the ground, or my mother lets that lighter slip!"
The man holding the hydraulic ram dropped it with a heavy, hollow thud. The clatter echoed against the wet brickwork. The other three agents looked at each other, their faces drained of blood. They were corrupt enforcers working for a dirty prosecutor, but they weren't suicide bombers.
One by one, they unholstered their sidearms and set them carefully onto the wet cobblestones.
Marco stepped out from the shadows of the alley entrance, his weapon raised, efficiently kicking the guns into the drainage gutter. My father followed, his face grim, his hands surprisingly steady as he secured the zip-ties Gabriel tossed him.
"Inside," Gabriel ordered the agents, gesturing toward the back door.
I ran forward, pulling the exterior gas shut-off lever down until the valve locked with a loud, metallic clack. The hiss from the kitchen vents died instantly.
We escorted the four men into the darkened restaurant. As the emergency backup lights flickered on, illuminating the familiar dining room with its white tablecloths and polished crystal, Beatrice walked down the rear staircase.
She wasn't trembling. Her silver hair was pinned back immaculately, her silk blouse pristine. She walked straight past the four kneeling agents, stopping directly in front of me.
She looked down at the Pelican case in my hands. Her fingers moved rapidly.
*Julian’s?*
"Yes," I signed back, my eyes filling with tears. "Everything is here, Beatrice. Every offshore account. Every name. Even the governor."
Beatrice nodded once, a slow, solemn movement of her head that carried the weight of a decade's worth of sorrow. She reached out, taking my cold, wet hands in her warm ones, squeezing them gently.
Then she turned to Gabriel. Her hands moved with lethal, surgical rhythm.
*Call the United States Attorney for the Northern District. Not Kathryn Reyes's office. Call Marcus Vance.*
I jerked my head toward my father. "Marcus Vance? Dad, who is Marcus?"
My father swallowed hard, stepping into the dim light of the chandeliers. "My estranged brother, Maya. He left Chicago twenty years ago after Julian was born. He’s the Senior Chief of the Public Integrity Section in Washington."
Gabriel smiled—a cold, terrifying grin that signaled the beginning of the end. "Your father didn't just build a shipping corridor, Maya. He kept a family member at the highest level of the Justice Department in case the syndicate ever tried to swallow Vance & Sons whole."
"Why didn't you call him five years ago?" I asked my father, my voice breaking. "When Julian died, why didn't you call Uncle Marcus?"
"Because Julian didn't have the hard drive when they killed him," my father whispered, tears running freely down his cheeks. "Without the proof, Marcus couldn't touch Sterling or Reyes without looking like he was waging a family vendetta. But now..."
My father looked at the Pelican case on the dining table.
May you like
"Now we have the names, the dates, and the blood on their hands."
***
