Chapter 5 - The Glass Castle
The interior of the Whitcomb estate was chaotic.
Paintings had been yanked from the walls, antique vases knocked over, and drawers pulled open in a desperate, frantic search for valuables. Preston Whitcomb had panicked.
Enzo’s men entered first, weapons raised, sweeping the massive marble foyer with military precision.
"Clear!" Marco called out.
"Clear upstairs!" another voice echoed from the balcony.
Enzo stepped inside, holding Harper firmly by the hand, his body positioned slightly in front of hers to block any potential line of fire. Harper looked around her childhood home, feeling an eerie detachment. This was the place where she had spent twenty-three years in terror, yet now, surrounded by Enzo’s armed men, it looked surprisingly small and hollow.
"Where is the library?" Enzo whispered.
"Down the east wing," Harper replied, pointing toward a set of double oak doors at the end of a grand hallway. "Through those doors."
They moved down the hallway quickly and quietly. Enzo pushed the double doors open with his foot, his gun raised.
The library was a massive room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a grand stone fireplace, and a massive mahogany desk. Standing near the far wall, furiously shoveling stacks of bearer bonds and foreign currency into a heavy leather duffel bag, was Preston Whitcomb.
He looked terrible. His tailored suit was wrinkled, his thin grey hair disheveled, his eyes bloodshot and wild.
"Preston," Enzo’s voice rang out like a funeral bell.
Preston gasped, dropping a stack of hundred-dollar bills onto the floor. He spun around, pulling a small silver snub-nosed revolver from his jacket pocket with a trembling hand.
"Stay back!" Preston shrieked, his voice thin and hysterical. "Stay back, DeLuca! I have security coming! They'll be here in two minutes!"
"Your security took my money and boarded a flight to Miami two hours ago, Preston," Enzo said coldly, stepping into the room with his pistol aimed directly at Preston’s chest. "You are completely alone."
Preston’s eyes darted frantically around the room until they landed on the figure standing just behind Enzo’s shoulder.
His face contorted in a mixture of rage and shock. "Harper?" he spat out, his voice dripping with venom. "You brought him here? You ungrateful little bitch!"
Harper took a step forward, stepping out from behind Enzo’s shadow. She didn't flinch. She didn't tremble. She looked at her father with eyes as cold as the ice outside.
"Put the gun down, Preston," Harper said smoothly.
"I raised you!" Preston screamed, his arm shaking violently as he pointed the small revolver toward her. "I gave you everything! Food, clothes, the best schools, a home! And you betray me for this mob scum? I should have broken your neck years ago!"
Enzo’s eye twitched. His finger tightened slightly on the trigger of his gun. "Say one more word to her, Preston, and I'll put a bullet through your knee."
"You won't kill me!" Preston laughed hysterically. "If I die, the codes die with me! The physical evidence connecting me to your precious brother's death is locked in a vault behind this wall! If I don't enter my biometric code every ten minutes, the local drives incinerate everything! You'll never get justice, DeLuca!"
Harper walked calmly past Enzo, heading straight toward the massive bookcase on the left wall.
"Harper, stay back," Enzo warned quietly, keeping his weapon trained on Preston.
Harper ignored him. She reached out and pulled a heavy gold-embossed volume of Encyclopedia Britannica from the third shelf. A quiet click echoed through the room, and a four-foot section of the bookcase popped forward three inches.
Preston’s jaw dropped. "How... how do you know about that?"
Harper pulled the bookcase open, revealing a heavy digital safe built into the reinforced concrete wall. A red LED screen blinked slowly: ENTER MASTER PASSCODE.
Harper reached out and typed a fast twelve-digit sequence into the key pad: 10-24-1998-00-00.
The LED screen blinked green. A heavy pneumatic hiss filled the room as the heavy steel bolts retracted.
Preston went white as paper. "That... that was my private override!"
"It was the date my mother died," Harper said, her voice dropping to a icy whisper as she turned to look at him. "The day you started locking me in the dark. You thought you were clever using it, Preston. But you forgot that I spent twenty years studying your cruelty."
Harper pulled the heavy steel door open. Inside were three black hard drives, a stack of ledger books, and a velvet pouch containing raw diamonds.
She grabbed the three hard drives and the main leather binder, turning back to face Enzo. "Here it is. Everything. The wire transfers, the encrypted messages with the hitmen, and the offshore account routing numbers."
Enzo’s face split into a dark, victorious smile. "Beautiful work, my love."
Preston, seeing his entire life's work and freedom vanish in a single second, lost his mind entirely.
"You ruined me!" he screamed, dropping his sanity completely. He brought his revolver up and aimed it directly at Harper’s chest. "If I'm going to hell, you're coming with me!"
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BANG!
A gunshot deafened the room.
