Chapter 8 - The Fall of Arthur Shaw
With Arthur Santoro eliminated and the internal treason crushed, only two threats remained: the Valenti family and my father, Arthur Shaw.
Forty-eight hours after the council meeting, Niko and I sat in the back of an armored SUV parked outside a private hangar at Teterboro Airport.
Rain lashed against the blacked-out windows as three Santoro tactical units surrounded a sleek private jet on the tarmac.
Arthur Shaw was attempting to flee to Switzerland under his federal witness protection clearance.
The jet’s passenger door opened, and federal marshals led my father down the mobile staircase, straight into a trap. Four Santoro vehicles blocked the runway, while state police cruisers—alerted by anonymous tips provided by my legal team—pulled up behind them.
Niko opened the door of our SUV, holding an umbrella over my head as we stepped out onto the rain-slicked tarmac.
My father, wearing a heavy trench coat, froze when he saw me walking beside Niko Santoro.
"Evelyn?" my father gasped out, his face pale and sunken. "Evelyn, get away from him! He’s a monster! I’m doing this to save you!"
I stopped ten feet away from him, looking at the man who had raised me, the man whose photos I had kept on my desk for four years at college.
"You didn't do anything to save me, Dad," I said, my voice carrying no hatred, only a cold, devastating truth. "You traded me to the Valentis first. Then you traded me to Niko. And then you tried to frame me for your own financial crimes so you could escape to Geneva with forty million dollars of embezzled campaign funds."
My father blinked, his lips trembling. "Evelyn... please... I’m your father..."
"A father protects his child," I said softly, stepping closer to Niko, taking my husband's hand in mine. "You used me as a shield. But I found a man who actually protects me."
Prosecutor Marcus Sterling stepped out of a federal sedan, holding a thick stack of arrest warrants. "Arthur Shaw, you are under arrest for federal campaign embezzlement, evidence tampering, and treasonous conspiracy."
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As the federal marshals placed cold steel handcuffs around my father's wrists and led him toward the police cruiser, he turned his head, crying out my name one last time.
I didn't turn back. I kept my eyes fixed on the horizon, my fingers tightly intertwined with Niko’s.
