Chapter 6 - The Interrogation
The cold metal of the chair felt icy against Tommy’s arms.
He was bound to a heavy wooden chair in the utility basement beneath the St. Regis Penthouse. Standing in front of him was Marcus Vance—Julian’s ruthless head of private security—and Julian Montgomery himself, holding Tommy’s torn blue winter coat in one hand.
Julian tossed the coat onto a nearby workbench, pulling out the encrypted drive and the miniature parabolic microphone Tommy had been carrying.
"Well, well, well," Julian said, strolling around the bound twelve-year-old child with a look of amused disgust. "A street rat. A literal barefoot beggar spying on my private meeting."
Tommy glared up at Julian, refusing to flinch, refusing to drop his eyes. "Your father knows everything," Tommy said, his voice quiet, steady, and cold. "He knows about the forged doctor's reports. He knows about the money you stole from the dockworkers' pension fund."
Julian’s smile vanished instantly. He took two steps forward, leaning down until his face was inches from Tommy’s.
"My father is an old fool," Julian spat, his eyes wild with sudden, cornered desperation. "He built an empire and gave away billions to charities while I waited in his shadow for decades! I earned this company!"
"You didn't earn anything," Tommy replied, staring into Julian's eyes. "You're just a thief in an expensive suit. My dad worked twelve hours a day on your docks until his hands bled. You couldn't last five minutes in his boots."
Julian’s face flushed with violent rage. He raised his hand to strike the boy, but Marcus Vance grabbed his wrist.
"Don't, sir," Marcus warned firmly. "If you mark the kid, it complicates things if police get involved. We just keep him locked in this utility room until the shareholder call finishes at noon. Once the board vote passes and you take full control of the firm, we drop the boy off on the opposite side of the state with a couple thousand dollars to keep his mouth shut."
Julian took a deep breath, smoothing his designer tie, regaining his composure.
"You think you're clever, boy," Julian sneered, looking down at Tommy. "You think my father cares about you? You're a dirty street kid he’s using to do his dirty work. The moment this fight is over, he’ll throw you back onto the street where he found you. Men like Richard Montgomery don't adopt homeless orphans. We use people like you, and then we forget you exist."
Julian turned on his heel and walked toward the heavy steel door, Marcus following close behind.
"Lock the double deadbolts," Julian ordered. "Cut the heat in this basement room. Let him think about how cold the streets are going to feel when this is over."
The heavy steel door slammed shut. The mechanical locks threw into place with three loud, metallic thuds.
The lights went out, plunging the basement room into absolute darkness.
Tommy sat alone in the freezing dark, his arms bound behind his back with plastic zip-ties. The temperature in the room began to drop immediately as the cold air from the building’s foundation seeped through the concrete floor.
Tommy closed his eyes, breathing slowly through his nose.
“If you get trapped in a tight spot, Tommy,” his father’s voice echoed in his memory, warm and clear. “Don't fight the walls. Look for the weak wire.”
May you like
Tommy tested the flexibility of his wrists against the plastic zip-ties. They were pulled tight, cutting into his skin, but the chair he was tied to was old pine wood, its armrests worn and slightly splintered.
Tommy began to rock his body back and forth, dragging the leg of the heavy wooden chair across the rough concrete floor toward a exposed rusted iron pipe sticking out from the wall.
