Chapter 7 - THE CONFESSION IN THE FOLDER
“An obituary?” Rosalind repeated, her voice pitching up in absolute panic. She stared at the papers in her hand, her perfectly manicured fingernails digging into the manila folder.
Vincent stood perfectly still under the red laser sight of the sniper’s rifle. He didn't flinch.
“That’s a full, detailed confession of Silas Vane’s embezzlement from the Chicago Commission over the past five years,” Vincent explained, his voice echoing with terrifying authority over the sound of the storm outside. “Complete with bank routing numbers, offshore accounts, and the names of the men he bribed. Including the man currently pointing a rifle at my chest.”
The red laser dot on Vincent’s chest trembled slightly.
“He’s lying!” Rosalind screamed up at the catwalk. “Shoot him, Marcus! Shoot him now!”
But Marcus, Silas’s most ruthless enforcer, didn't pull the trigger.
“Read the second page, Rosalind,” Vincent ordered calmly. “Read it out loud so Marcus can hear exactly what Silas thought of his loyalty.”
Rosalind’s hands shook violently as she flipped the page. Her eyes scanned the text, and the blood drained completely from her face.
“Read it!” Marcus shouted from the catwalk, his voice laced with sudden suspicion.
“It says...” Rosalind choked out, terrified. “It says Marcus was the fall guy. Silas planned to tip off the FBI to Marcus’s safehouse tomorrow morning. He was going to trade Marcus’s life for a lighter sentence if the Commission ever found out about the missing money.”
“You lying bitch!” Marcus roared from above.
The red laser dot snapped off Vincent’s chest and painted a bright red target directly on Rosalind’s forehead.
“Marcus, wait! He forged this!” Rosalind shrieked, dropping the folder and raising her hands in desperate surrender. “Vincent is trying to turn us against each other! Silas wouldn't betray you!”
“Silas would betray his own mother for a dollar,” Marcus snarled.
In the fraction of a second that Marcus shifted his aim from Vincent to Rosalind, Vincent moved with blinding, lethal speed.
He didn't run for cover. He dove forward, tackling Sophie to the cold concrete floor, wrapping his massive body entirely around his seven-year-old daughter to shield her from the inevitable crossfire.
Below the floorboards, Clara didn't hesitate. The distraction was exactly what she needed.
Clara kicked the loose floorboard up with all her strength and surged out of the crawlspace like a ghost.
Rosalind spun around, her eyes widening in sheer horror as the twenty-four-year-old housemaid she had tormented for eight months rose from the shadows behind her.
Rosalind frantically tried to raise her 9mm pistol.
Clara didn't fire the gun Vincent had given her. She knew a gunshot would draw Marcus’s immediate return fire.
Instead, Clara swung her arm and drove the heavy steel butt of the compact pistol directly into Rosalind’s temple.
The sickening crack echoed in the boathouse. Rosalind’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she collapsed like a ragdoll, plunging face-first toward the churning black water of the interior boat slip.
Clara lunged forward, grabbing Rosalind by the collar of her expensive trench coat just before she hit the water, violently hauling the unconscious woman back onto the concrete floor.
BANG.
A deafening sniper shot shattered the wooden planks exactly where Rosalind had been standing a second before. Marcus was firing from the catwalk, furious that his target had dropped.
“Clara, get down!” Vincent roared.
Clara threw herself flat onto the concrete next to Rosalind’s unconscious body.
Vincent rolled out from covering Sophie, snatching Rosalind’s dropped 9mm pistol off the ground in one fluid motion. He didn't even aim. He pointed the weapon upward toward the flashes of light on the catwalk and squeezed the trigger three times in rapid succession.
A heavy grunt sounded from above.
The sniper rifle clattered onto the wooden planks, followed immediately by Marcus’s massive body crashing over the railing. He hit the concrete floor thirty feet below with a devastating, final thud.
The boathouse fell into a sudden, suffocating silence, save for the rhythmic crashing of the waves against the pylons outside.
Vincent breathed heavily, keeping the gun trained on the catwalk for several seconds to ensure there were no other shooters.
When he was certain they were clear, he dropped the weapon and scrambled over to Sophie.
“Daddy!” Sophie sobbed, throwing her zip-tied hands around his neck.
“I’ve got you, sweetheart. You’re safe,” Vincent whispered, his voice cracking with profound emotion. He pulled a pocket knife from his belt and carefully sliced the zip-ties off her small wrists, kissing her forehead repeatedly.
Clara sat up slowly, her whole body shaking violently. The adrenaline was leaving her system, leaving behind a cold, terrifying reality. She had just assaulted a woman and survived a mafia shootout.
Vincent stood up, lifting Sophie effortlessly into his arms. He walked over to Clara, extending his free hand.
“Are you hurt?” Vincent asked, his dark eyes filled with absolute, overwhelming gratitude.
Clara took his hand, letting him pull her to her feet. “I’m okay. Is it over?”
“It’s over,” Vincent promised, pulling Clara into a fierce, protective embrace, holding both her and Sophie tightly against his chest. For a moment, they stood together in the damp, freezing boathouse, a makeshift family forged in the fires of a nightmare.
Vincent pulled back slightly, looking down at Rosalind’s unconscious body.
“Let’s get back to the house,” Vincent said coldly. “I have a phone call to make to the Commission to clean up Silas’s mess.”
They walked back through the storm, the rain washing the mud and blood from their clothes. The mansion loomed ahead, now a fortress completely under Vincent’s control.
Vincent carried Sophie up to her bedroom, tucking her securely under her warm blankets, promising he would sit in the chair beside her bed all night.
Clara walked down to the kitchen to make some warm milk for the little girl, her hands still trembling slightly as she poured the liquid into a mug.
The nightmare was finally over. The villains were defeated.
But as Clara turned to walk back upstairs, her eyes caught something resting on the kitchen island.
It was Silas’s heavy wool overcoat, abandoned when he had tried to flee the library earlier that night.
Clara walked over to it, intending to throw it in the trash. But as she picked it up, a heavy, metallic object slipped out of the interior pocket and clattered onto the marble countertop.
Clara stared at it, the blood slowly draining from her face.
It was an old, tarnished silver pocket watch. The exact same watch her father had carried every day of his life until he died. The watch she had sold to a pawn shop eight months ago to pay for his funeral.
With shaking fingers, Clara picked up the watch and clicked the latch open.
Inside the cover, taped over the clock face, was a small, folded piece of paper.
Clara unfolded it.
It wasn't a pawn receipt.
It was a contract, signed in her father’s handwriting, dated three days before his supposed heart attack.
May you like
I, Robert Ellis, agree to provide Silas Vane with the architectural blueprints to the Hale Estate panic room, in exchange for the cancellation of my debts.
Clara stopped breathing. Her father hadn't just owed money. He had sold the blueprints to Vincent’s home to the man trying to murder him.
