Chapter 7 - THE RECKONING IN THE CELLAR
The cellar was cold, smelling of aged oak, damp stone, and sulfur.
Water from broken sprinkler lines rained steadily from the ceiling.
At the end of the long brick corridor, a yellow work light cast long, jagged shadows against the arched vault.
Marcus Vance stood in front of the main foundation pillar.
He wore a tactical vest over his tailored suit.
In his hands was an electronic detonator wired to four blocks of C4 taped to the central arch.
Beside him sat a duffel bag stuffed with gold bearer bonds and encrypted hard drives.
He heard my footsteps splashing in the puddle.
Marcus didn't turn around right away.
He slowly finished connecting the copper wire to the receiver.
"You drive fast, Damian," Marcus said, his voice bouncing off the stone walls.
"I calculated you had at least twenty minutes left in Manhattan."
"You calculated wrong, Marcus," I said, stopping twenty feet behind him.
My gun was pointed directly at the back of his neck.
Marcus turned around slowly.
His face was calm, arrogant, unbothered by the gun in my hand.
He had been my brother in arms for fifteen years.
We had survived gang wars, federal raids, and the rise of our empire side by side.
"You've gone soft, Damian," Marcus said, shaking his head with fake pity.
"Look at you. The great Damian Cross, ruler of the five boroughs, reduced to running home to check on a crippled toddler."
My grip on the Sig Sauer tightened.
"You poisoned my daughter."
Marcus smiled.
It was a cold, sickening smile that revealed the monster beneath the friend.
"She was a distraction!" Marcus yelled, his voice echoing off the arches.
"You used to be ruthless! You used to expand! But after Elena died, you spent every waking hour obsessing over physical therapists, neurologists, wheelchairs!"
Marcus took a step forward, gesturing wildly with the detonator.
"The syndicate was stagnating! Victor Moretti was eating our territory in Queens! And you were reading bedtime stories!"
"So you decided to cripple her forever?" I asked, my voice terrifyingly calm.
"I did what had to be done to keep your head in the game!" Marcus shouted.
"And when that didn't work, I decided to take the throne myself!"
Marcus raised his thumb over the red toggle switch on the detonator.
"Put the gun down, Damian."
"Or I blow this pillar and bury both of us under four thousand tons of limestone."
I didn't lower the gun.
I took one measured, deliberate step forward.
"You think I'm afraid of dying, Marcus?"
"I know you're not," Marcus sneered.
"But you're afraid of leaving those two little girls alone in the world."
"They're not alone," I said softly.
"They have Hannah."
"And they have a father who keeps his promises."
Marcus’s eyes widened in sudden realization.
His thumb pressed down on the red toggle.
Click.
Nothing happened.
The yellow indicator light remained dead.
Marcus frantically mashed the button again.
Click. Click.
"Looking for this?" a voice called from the shadows of the secondary tunnel.
Hannah Mercer stepped into the pool of light.
She leaned against the brick wall for support, her injured leg wrapped tightly in a torn linen towel.
In her left hand, she held the primary battery pack she had severed from the C4 line with her kitchen knife before escaping the house.
Marcus’s face drained of every drop of color.
"You... you little servant bitch..." Marcus snarled, reaching for his sidearm.
I fired three shots.
Two in his kneecaps.
One in his right shoulder.
Marcus shrieked, collapsing into the muddy puddle, thrashing in agony.
His gun clattered across the wet concrete.
I walked over and kicked the weapon into the drain.
I stepped onto Marcus’s chest, driving the heel of my boot into his sternum.
He gasped for air, blood bubbling at the corner of his lips.
"Damian... please..." Marcus wheezed, looking up into my dead eyes.
"We built this together..."
"You destroyed it yourself," I whispered.
I leaned down close to his ear.
"And my daughter will walk across your grave."
I pulled the zip-ties from my belt and bound his wrists and ankles until the plastic bit into the bone.
"Dominic is waiting outside," I said, standing up.
"He has a very long list of questions about Moretti’s remaining operations."
I turned to Hannah.
She was sliding down the wall, her energy completely spent, her skin pale from blood loss.
I caught her before she hit the ground.
I scooped her up into my arms.
She weighed almost nothing against my chest.
"You should have stayed in the ambulance, Hannah," I murmured, carrying her toward the cellar stairs.
Hannah rested her head against my shoulder, her eyelashes fluttering with exhaustion.
"I told you, Damian," she whispered, her voice fading into sleep.
May you like
"I finish what I start."
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