Chapter 5 - The Glass House
CLACK!
The entire estate plunged into pitch black darkness.
The heavy steel emergency shutters slammed down over every window and exterior door with a deafening, metallic roar that shook the foundation of the house! The heavy locks engaged electronically— trapping Victor Vance and his two killers inside the reinforced concrete box of my foyer.
Panic instantly erupted below.
"What the hell?!" one of the guards shouted, swinging his flashlight beam wildly toward the ceiling. "The grid didn't shut down—it locked us in!"
"It's a trap!" Victor screamed, his voice cracking with pure terror. "Get to the doors! Blow the locks!"
"You're not leaving, Victor," my voice boomed through the high-grade acoustic house speakers, echoing off the marble walls like the judgment of an angry god.
Flashlight beams snapped upward toward the dark balcony where I stood.
THWIP! THWIP!
I fired two suppressed rounds from my 9mm. The lead guard took both rounds to the chest, crashing backward onto the marble floor, his flashlight clattering and rolling into the fountain.
The second guard panicked, lifting his weapon to spray automatic fire toward the upper staircase.
Before he could pull the trigger, Dominic stepped out from the shadowy hallway behind him, bringing a heavy tactical baton down across his neck with bone-crushing force. The guard collapsed like a sack of stones.
Victor Vance dropped his weapon.
He fell to his knees on the bloody marble floor, his hands raised high in the air, his flashlight beam pointing uselessly at the ceiling.
"Vincent!" Victor shrieked, tears springing to his eyes as I slowly descended the grand marble staircase, my leather boots clicking in the dark silence. "Vincent, wait! Please! It wasn't my idea! The Chicago syndicate... they forced me! They threatened to kill me if I didn't get them the Rossi trust assets!"
I reached the bottom of the stairs, stepping past the bleeding bodies of his mercenaries until I was standing two feet away from my dead wife's brother.
I clicked on my tactical flashlight, aiming the blinding white beam directly into his face.
"Fourteen months ago," I said, my voice dead and cold. "You put a bomb under my car. My wife died in my arms, Victor. My son’s spine was shattered."
"I loved her!" Victor wept, clutching his hands together in a desperate prayer. "Elena was my sister! I didn't mean for her to be in the car that day! It was supposed to be just you! You were supposed to be the only one in that vehicle!"
"You tried to kill my son tonight," I said, raising the barrel of my pistol until it rested directly against his forehead.
Victor squeezed his eyes shut, sobbing hysterically against the cold floor. "Please, Vincent... for Elena's memory... don't do this... don't kill me in cold blood..."
I held the barrel against his skull for three long, agonized seconds. Every instinct honed by a lifetime in the underworld screamed at me to pull the trigger, to splatter his brains across the marble foyer he had tried to stain with my son's blood.
Then, the image of Matteo’s small, sad face flashed in my mind.
You look at him like he's at a funeral.
If I pulled this trigger, if I let the blood and darkness win again tonight, I would be burying the last piece of humanity I had left. I would be confirming everything Matteo believed about me.
Slowly, deliberately, I lowered the gun.
"Dominic," I said quietly.
"Yes, boss?"
"Call Federal Prosecutor Marcus Vance," I commanded. "Tell him I have the man who murdered his sister and laundered fifty million dollars for the Chicago mob tied up in my foyer. Give him the thumb drive, the financial logs, and the confession recording from the house security system."
Victor opened his eyes, blinking through his tears in absolute shock. "You're... you're letting me live?"
I leaned down until my face was inches from his.
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"You're going to spend the next forty years in a maximum-security federal cell, Victor," I whispered softly. "And every single day, you're going to wake up knowing that my son survived, my family survived, and you lost everything."
I turned my back on him, walking away into the dark hallway, leaving my men to drag the crying coward into the basement holding rooms.
