Chapter 8 - The Reckoning
Victor dropped his pistol, his hands flying into the air, his face pale as chalk. “Roman! I—I can explain—Mercer forced me—he threatened my family!”
“Shut up, Victor,” Roman said flatly.
He didn't yell. He didn't raise his voice. That made it ten times more terrifying.
Roman walked slowly down the center of the room, stopping two feet from Dr. Harrison. The doctor was trembling so violently he dropped the fatal syringe onto the floor. It shattered against the tile.
“Doctor,” Roman murmured, looking down at the shattered glass. “You took an oath to do no harm. But for fifty thousand dollars a month, you turned my brother’s mind into a prison.”
“Mr. Hale, please!” Harrison wept, falling to his knees. “I’ll give the money back! I’ll testify against Mercer! I’ll tell the medical board everything!”
“You will testify,” Roman said cold-bloodedly. “From a maximum-security federal cell where you will spend the next thirty years of your miserable life.”
Roman turned back to Victor.
“And you, Victor,” Roman whispered, stepping closer until his face was inches from his former lieutenant’s. “I trusted you with my family. I gave you a seat at my table. I called you my brother.”
“Roman, please…” Victor whimpered, tears streaming down his cheeks.
“Lev,” Roman commanded, stepping back. “Take them to the basement. Lock them in the wine cellars until the State Attorney and the FBI arrive. They have full wiretap recordings of every call Victor made to Mercer over the last forty-eight hours.”
“What about Mercer?” Lev asked, gesturing to his men to drag the shouting, crying traitors out of the room.
Roman pulled his coat tighter around his broad shoulders. “Mercer is currently arriving at Pier 42, expecting his shipment. He doesn't know that three tactical teams from the DEA and the Illinois State Police are waiting in his shipping containers.”
Roman walked out of the room, down the grand staircase, and toward the east wing—the fully secured, undisclosed safe wing where Ethan had been moved three hours earlier.
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The war was over. The snakes had been pulled from the grass.
And for the first time in two years, Roman Hale felt the heavy, suffocating darkness lifting from his home.
