Chapter 8 - The Shadow in the Mirror
“Don’t touch anything,” Mercer breathed, his police training kicking in despite the madness of the night. He stepped cautiously toward the desk, checking the pulse at Declan’s neck even though the angle of the head made it entirely unnecessary. “He’s cold. Rigor has already started.”
Maeve stood in the doorway, her arms wrapped tightly around her shivering frame. The surreal horror of the scene pressed down on her chest. “If Declan is dead… who ordered the hit in the alley?”
A sudden, sharp click echoed from the far corner of the expansive library adjacent to the office.
Mercer spun, bringing his weapon up, but before he could fire, a heavy blow from behind caught him square across the back of the neck. The young cop dropped like a stone, his Glock clattering across the Persian rug.
Maeve screamed, stumbling backward, but a hand clamped over her mouth with suffocating force, dragging her deep into the shadows of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
“Hush now, little bird,” a gravelly, unfamiliar voice whispered in her ear. “Your employer is a very busy man. We wouldn't want to interrupt him.”
Through a gap in the leather-bound volumes, Maeve watched as heavy, measured footsteps entered the office.
Callum appeared in the doorway seconds later, his shotgun lowered, his dark eyes scanning the room. When he saw Declan’s body slumped over the desk, he didn't flinch. He didn't gasp. He simply walked slowly into the room, his gaze fixed on the dead man’s face.
“You’re late, Callum,” a voice drawled from the darkness near the fireplace.
A man stepped out from the shadows. Tall, impeccably dressed in a charcoal three-piece suit, with streaks of silver at his temples and a thin, jagged scar running beneath his chin.
Victor Sloane.
The man who had beaten her in the alley.
Callum’s grip on the shotgun tightened until his knuckles turned blue. “Victor. I wondered when you’d crawl out from under the docks.”
“I didn't crawl anywhere,” Sloane smiled, a cold, dead expression touching his eyes as he rested one hand casually on the marble mantelpiece. “I was invited. Just like Declan invited me to help him clean up Eamon’s mess four years ago.”
Callum’s voice dropped into a register of pure, frozen venom. “So it was you on the boat. You were the one who cut my brother’s brake lines.”
“Drowning is such a quiet way to go,” Sloane mused, taking a slow step forward. “Eamon was too proud to play ball with the syndicate. Declan wanted the shipping routes; we wanted the international pipeline. But Declan got soft at the end. Started feeling guilty. Thought about going to the feds himself last week. So, we had to perform a little corporate restructuring.”
“And you thought framing me for my cousin’s murder would tie up all the loose ends?” Callum asked, his eyes darting subtly toward the door where Maeve was being held.
“It’s poetry, Callum,” Sloane chuckled softly, raising a heavy-caliber automatic pistol from his side. “The ruthless shipping magnate unhinged by grief, executing his own cousin in a family power struggle, then committing suicide when the police close in. The papers will write themselves.”
“You forgot one thing, Victor,” Callum said, his voice terrifyingly calm.
May you like
Sloane raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And what’s that?”
“You left the maid alive.”
