Chapter 8 - Whispers in the Dark
While the sun shone brightly over the Hayes Tower, three hundred miles away in a high-security federal penitentiary in rural Pennsylvania, the shadows were deep and cold.
Arthur Sullivan sat on a narrow iron cot inside his concrete cell.
His silver hair was unkempt, his once-tailored clothes replaced by a coarse orange jumpsuit. His hands, which had once held twelve-hundred-dollar glasses of scotch under crystal chandeliers, were rough, calloused, and liver-spotted.
A heavy steel door groaned open down the hall. A guard tapped his nightstick against the cell bars.
"Sullivan," the guard grunted. "You got a visitor. Ten minutes."
Arthur stood up slowly, his knees aching from the damp concrete. He shuffled down the corridor under heavy guard into a small, sterile visitation room divided by thick bulletproof glass.
Sitting on the other side of the glass was a tall man in a plain black coat. He had sharp, hawkish features, cold brown eyes, and a thin scar running down the left side of his neck.
It was Kasparov—the high-level mercenary commander Arthur had tried to hire to eliminate Lana two years ago.
Arthur picked up the plastic telephone receiver on his side of the glass. His hand trembled with a mixture of desperation and sudden, terrifying hope.
"Kasparov," Arthur rasped into the receiver. "How did you get in here?"
"I have contacts everywhere, Arthur," Kasparov replied, his voice flat, emotionless, coming through the tinny speaker. "I came to deliver a message."
"Did you get her?" Arthur whispered, his eyes gleaming with a sick, vengeful madness. "Is the girl dead? Did you kill Brennan Hayes?!"
Kasparov looked at Arthur with cold contempt.
"Two years ago, you wired my account five million dollars to eliminate Lana Gallagher," Kasparov said slowly. "Do you know what happened forty-eight hours after your arrest, Arthur?"
Arthur frowned. "What?"
"Brennan Hayes didn't send lawyers," Kasparov said softly. "He came to my compound in Montreal himself. Alone. He walked into my office, sat down across from me, and set your five million dollars in cash on my desk."
Arthur’s breath hitched in his throat.
"Hayes looked me in the eye," Kasparov continued, "and said, 'Arthur Sullivan is finished. His money is poison. If you or any man in your organization ever breathes the name Lana Gallagher again, I won't just destroy your network. I will erase your lineage from the earth.'"
Kasparov leaned closer to the glass.
"I returned your money to Hayes that night, Arthur," Kasparov whispered. "Because unlike you... I am a professional. I don't fight men who control the air we breathe."
"You coward!" Arthur spat into the receiver, slamming his fist against the counter. "You took my money! You swore an oath!"
"I came here today for one reason, Arthur," Kasparov said coldly, standing up from his chair. "To tell you that your wife, Beatrice, filed for divorce from her prison cell in Connecticut yesterday. She signed over her remaining legal claims to avoid further tax prosecution."
Arthur froze, the phone slipping slightly in his fingers. "What... what did you say?"
"You are completely alone, Arthur," Kasparov said, turning his back on the glass. "You have no empire. No fortune. No family. No legacy. You are a ghost sitting in a stone cage."
Kasparov walked out of the visitation room, the heavy steel door slamming shut behind him with a deafening CLANG.
Arthur sat in the cold chair, holding the dead telephone receiver against his ear. The silence in the room was absolute, heavy, and terrifying.
May you like
He looked down at his trembling, empty hands.
For the first time in his life, Arthur Sullivan realized that he hadn't just lost a legal battle. He had erased himself.
