Chapter 7 - The Cascade
By the end of the week, the Wolfe empire wasn't just crumbling; it was disintegrating at blinding speed.
With Dominic and Tristan held without bail in federal custody on charges of racketeering, illegal smuggling, and armed extortion, the remaining brothers panicked.
Gabriel and Julian—the second and third eldest, who managed the family’s real estate holdings—tried to liquidate fifty million dollars in commercial properties to pay for their brothers' legal defense funds. But before the deeds could be transferred, I leaked a series of recorded phone conversations between Gabriel and a corrupt city zoning commissioner directly to the local press.
By Tuesday morning, state tax investigators froze every corporate bank account linked to Wolfe Development LLC.
By Wednesday afternoon, Marcus and Tristan’s private security firm was stripped of its operating licenses after state police raided their armory and seized forty unregistered automatic rifles.
And through it all, I remained at the hospital.
Every single night, from midnight until 6:00 AM, I sat in the dim blue light of Tessa's ICU room. I held her right hand—the hand that was mercifully un-fractured—and read to her from the worn paperback novels she kept on her bedside table at home.
Her condition was stabilizing. The swelling in her brain had reduced by forty percent, and the doctors were beginning to reduce her sedation levels.
On Thursday night at 3:00 AM, the heavy glass door of her room clicked open.
I didn't reach for a weapon. I knew who it was by the sound of his heavy, hesitant footsteps.
Marcus Wolfe—the fifth brother, a former high school football star who managed the family's physical enforcement teams—stepped into the room. He wasn't wearing his usual tailor-made suit. He wore plain jeans, a dark jacket, and looked like he hadn't slept in five days.
"Jack," Marcus whispered, stopping five feet from the foot of Tessa's bed.
I kept my eyes on Tessa's quiet, sleeping face. "You're standing inside a medical facility, Marcus. If you step one inch closer to her bed, I will tear your arm out of its socket and beat you to death with it."
Marcus swallowed hard, raising both hands in a non-threatening gesture. "I didn't come here to fight you, Jack. I swear to God I didn't."
"Then why are you here?"
"My father is losing his mind," Marcus said, his voice trembling with exhausted horror. "Gabriel tried to flee to Canada two hours ago, and state troopers caught him at the border. Julian broke down in his office and tried to take his own life with a bottle of pills. The family is gone, Jack. There's nothing left."
"There's still Victor," I said coldly.
"My father called a meeting at the old concrete processing plant on 12th Street for tomorrow night," Marcus revealed, his eyes pleading with me. "He’s hired twelve former mercenaries from an international security firm. He’s liquidating his personal gold reserves from the house safe. He’s planning to drag you into a trap, kill you, and use the gold to buy passage on a cargo ship to South America."
I turned my head slowly to look at Marcus. "Why are you telling me this?"
Marcus looked down at Tessa’s bandaged arms, then at my cold, unyielding face.
"Because I saw the video," Marcus whispered, tears brimming in his eyes. "The FBI showed us the security footage from the alley near her gym during our depositions. I saw what Dominic did to her. I... I didn't know it was like that, Jack. My father told us she was a dangerous gang associate who tried to murder Dominic. He lied to us our whole lives."
Marcus reached into his pocket, pulled out a small electronic keycard, and placed it gently on the edge of the nightstand.
"That keycard opens the side gate of the concrete plant," Marcus said. "He’s going to have six snipers on the upper catwalks. Don't go through the front entrance, Jack. They'll kill you before you even cross the yard."
I looked at the keycard, then back at Marcus.
"Why shouldn't I give this keycard to the FBI?" I asked.
"Because my father has three city council members and two precinct captains sitting in that building with him right now," Marcus replied grimly. "If the feds move in, those cops will give him twenty minutes warning to escape out the river tunnel. If you want Victor Wolfe to face justice... you have to shut that tunnel yourself."
I stared at Marcus for a long moment, reading his posture, his pulse, his breathing.
He was telling the truth. The final beam of the fortress was standing alone, surrounded by the ruins of his own creation.
May you like
"Get out of the city, Marcus," I told him quietly. "Take your mother, take your sisters, and leave state lines before tomorrow night. Because when I go into that plant, I'm not leaving any prisoners behind."
Marcus nodded once, turned, and walked out into the dark hallway.
