Chapter 17 - The Price of Loyalty
The ride in the back of the unmarked black van was agonizingly long. Clara was handcuffed, her ankles bound, sitting in complete darkness. Her mind, however, was not filled with fear. It was filled with a cold, calculating rage.
She knew she had one advantage: Thorne’s arrogance. He believed he had won, which made him sloppy. He had left her alive to transport her to another location, wanting to orchestrate a theatrical double suicide to protect his reputation. That gave her time.
The van finally came to a halt. The doors slid open, revealing a bleak, abandoned industrial complex on the outskirts of the city. Rain had begun to fall, slicking the concrete ground.
Clara was dragged out of the van and pushed through the rusted doors of the facility. Inside, the air smelled of mold, ozone, and old chemicals. It was the abandoned clinical research site where Aegis Therapeutics had conducted its illegal trials before they were shut down by the FDA.
In the center of the vast, hollow room, tied to a heavy steel chair, was Marcus.
His face was bruised, a cut above his left eyebrow dripping blood down his cheek, but his eyes were wide and filled with terror when he saw Clara being brought in.
"Clara!" Marcus cried out, struggling against his restraints. "Thorne, you bastard! Leave her out of this!"
The guards pushed Clara down into a chair opposite Marcus, binding her to it with heavy zip-ties.
One of the guards, a ruthless-looking man with a scarred face named Viktor, pulled out a small black case. He opened it to reveal two pre-filled syringes containing a lethal, undetectable dose of synthetic opioids.
"Mr. Thorne wants this done neatly," Viktor said, tapping the side of one syringe to clear the air bubbles. "A tragic double overdose. The papers will write about how the grief of losing your son finally drove you both to the edge."
"Viktor," Clara said, her voice remarkably calm, causing the guard to pause. "Do you know how much Julian Thorne is worth?"
Viktor scoffed. "Billions."
"And do you know how much he is paying you to commit a double murder?" Clara continued, her eyes locking onto his. "A few thousand dollars? Maybe a hundred thousand? To him, you are a cockroach. If we die here tonight, the federal government will launch an investigation. The FBI will trace the drug to this facility. Thorne will sacrifice you in a heartbeat to save himself. He will lay the entire blame on your shoulders, and you will spend the rest of your life in a maximum-security prison. Just like Garrett."
Viktor’s hand tensed on the syringe. The other guards in the room shifted uncomfortably, exchanging uneasy glances. Clara’s words were hitting home. They knew Thorne’s reputation for discarding people who were no longer useful.
"Shut up," Viktor hissed, but there was a tremor of doubt in his voice.
May you like
"You don't have to do this," Marcus joined in, realizing what Clara was doing. "I am a senior partner at one of the largest defense firms in the state. If you let us go, we can guarantee you immunity. We can set you up with a new life, a new identity, and more money than Thorne would ever pay you. We have the data from Thorne’s personal tablet. He is going down, Viktor. The ship is sinking. Do you really want to drown with him?"
Viktor stood frozen, the syringe hovering inches from Marcus’s arm. The silence in the warehouse was deafening, save for the steady drip of rainwater from the ceiling.
