Chapter 6 - Blood on the Marble
The air in the grand foyer was heavy with the smell of gunpowder and burnt copper.
Jean-Paul Laurent walked slowly across the polished floor, his silver-tipped cane clicking against the marble. Mrs. Hargrove walked half a step behind him, clutching her leather briefcase filled with Dominic’s private accounts.
"Are you certain the boy is dead?" Laurent asked, his French accent smooth, cultured, and utterly devoid of humanity.
"The tear-gas grenades in the ventilation system will handle them if the blast door doesn't," Mrs. Hargrove said coldly, adjusting her pearl brooch. "Dominic locked himself in the bunker. He has no line of sight to the outside world. By the time the police arrive, we will be on a private flight out of O'Hare."
"Good," Laurent smiled, running a gloved hand over the mahogany banister. "Five years ago, Dominic thought he could destroy my organization and kill my men. I took his wife. Today, I take his fortune and his legacy."
"You won't even make it to the gate," a voice echoed from the darkness of the second-floor balcony.
Laurent stopped. Mrs. Hargrove gasped, dropping her briefcase onto the floor.
Dominic Vale stepped out of the shadows at the top of the stairs.
He didn't look like a businessman anymore. He looked like the grim reaper incarnate. He held the tactical shotgun rested against his hip, his dark eyes locked onto Laurent’s face.
"Impossible," Mrs. Hargrove whimpered, taking a step back. "The blast door was sealed!"
"You forgot who built this house, Evelyn," Dominic said coldly, stepping down the stairs one slow, deliberate step at a time. "I built the tunnels. I laid the foundation. And I knew three years ago that there was a rat in my walls."
Laurent didn't panic. He reached into his coat, pulling a small silver detonator from his pocket.
"A heroic effort, Dominic," Laurent drawled, holding up the detonator. "But three of my men have planted plastic explosives along the load-bearing columns of this foyer. One click, and this entire white mansion becomes your family’s mass grave."
Dominic didn't stop walking. He reached the bottom of the stairs, standing ten feet away from Laurent.
"Click it," Dominic said flatly.
Laurent frowned, his thumb hovering over the red button. "Do not test me, Vale."
"Click it, Jean-Paul," Dominic repeated, taking another step forward. "Because while you were standing here making speeches, my outer guards cleared your men in the garden. The signal jammer in my pocket has been active since I stepped onto the balcony. That detonator in your hand is nothing more than a silver paperweight."
Laurent’s eyes flashed with sudden, icy panic. He pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
He pressed it again, frantically.
CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.
Dominic raised the shotgun, pointing the heavy barrel directly at Laurent’s chest.
"That was for my wife," Dominic said.
BOOM!
The shot echoed through the mansion like a cannon blast. Laurent was thrown backward by the force of the blast, crashing through the glass coffee table in the center of the foyer, motionless.
Mrs. Hargrove let out a sharp, terrified shriek, dropping to her knees, raising her hands in desperate surrender.
"Dominic! Please!" she sobbed, tears streaming down her face, ruining her neat gray hair. "I had no choice! Laurent threatened my family! He forced me!"
Dominic walked over to her, his heavy boots crushing the glass shards on the floor. He didn't raise the gun. He simply stood over her, looking down with absolute disgust.
"You gave my four-year-old son chemical burns every day for two years," Dominic said, his voice dropping into a whisper that made Mrs. Hargrove’s blood turn to ice. "Death is too merciful for you."
He turned his head slightly toward the front doors.
The heavy iron doors swung open, and federal agents wearing dark vests labeled FBI flooded into the room, led by Marcus, Dominic’s head of outer security.
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"Take her," Dominic ordered the lead agent, tossing his shotgun onto the couch. "She’s all yours. Make sure she spends the rest of her miserable life in a maximum-security cell."
As the federal agents dragged the screaming Mrs. Hargrove out into the rain, Dominic turned toward the basement stairs. The darkness in his eyes cleared, replaced by a desperate, frantic urgency to reach the two people waiting below.
