Chapter 7 - The Witness
“Victor,” Ruby whispered, her body moving instinctively to shield Ollie behind her. “You were the one. You killed Eleanor.”
The head of security did not deny it. He walked into the light of the server racks, his face as expressionless as a stone wall. He wore his dark suit, but he had discarded his earpiece.
“Eleanor Cross was a beautiful woman, Miss Lane,” Victor said, his voice flat and professional. “But she was soft. She didn't understand that the world requires sacrifice to function. She wanted to take the boy and go to the federal prosecutors in New York. She had the drive, she had the documents, and she had the names.”
He looked at Ollie, who was staring at him with a dark, silent intensity.
“The boy was in the back seat,” Victor continued. “He wasn't supposed to survive the crash. But he did. And when I pulled him from the wreck, he looked me in the eye. He saw my face. He saw this ring.”
The pieces of the puzzle fell into place with a sickening clarity.
Ollie hadn't stopped speaking because of trauma from the accident. He had stopped speaking because he knew that if he said a single word about what he had seen, the man with the silver ring would come back to finish the job.
His silence wasn't obedience. It was survival.
And Mrs. Ashcroft had been guarding the door, ensuring that any nanny who got too close to the boy—any nanny who might get him to speak—was removed before the truth could come out.
“Nathaniel doesn't know, does he?” Ruby asked, her mind racing, looking for any leverage. “He thinks it was a robbery. He thinks his wife died because of a random attack.”
A faint, mocking smile touched Victor’s lips. “Nathaniel Cross is a brilliant businessman, Miss Lane. But he is blinded by his pride. He wanted to believe his wife was weak, that she died because she didn't have his strength. He doesn't know that his own head of security is the one who signed her death warrant on behalf of the syndicate.”
He raised the gun, pointing it directly at Ruby’s forehead.
“And now, both of you are going to join her. It will be a tragic accident. A fire in the old basement. A broke cleaning girl who tried to steal from the family and got caught in the flames.”
Suddenly, the steel door at the top of the stairs banged open.
Footsteps hurried down the stone steps.
“Victor!”
Nathaniel Cross burst into the room, his face pale, his breath ragged. He looked at the gun in his security chief’s hand, then at the shipping manifests on the desk, and finally at his son, who was standing behind Ruby.
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“What is the meaning of this?” Nathaniel demanded, his voice shaking with a rare, raw emotion. “Why do you have a weapon pointed at my son?”
“He’s not pointing it at your son, Mr. Cross,” Ruby shouted, her voice ringing through the concrete chamber. “He’s pointing it at the witness! Ask him about the silver ring! Ask him who killed Eleanor!”
