Chapter 10 - The Video From The Hospital Hallway
The bullet shattered the heavy oak wall paneling behind me.
Splinters showered my neck.
Tobias’s weight slammed into Garrett like a freight train.
Both men crashed through the executive chairs.
The gun skittered across the carpet toward the window.
Garrett fought with the frantic strength of a condemned man.
He clawed at Tobias’s throat.
He drove his knee upward into Tobias’s ribs.
Tobias didn't flinch.
Fifteen years of hidden training, of silent rehabilitation in the dark, exploded
into action.
Tobias grabbed Garrett’s wrist.
He twisted it until the bone popped with a sickening crunch.
Garrett shrieked in agony.
Tobias pinned him to the floor, his knee driving into Garrett’s sternum.
“You spent three years feeding my sister poison,” Tobias growled.
His voice was a lethal whisper.
“You spent fifteen years watching me sit in that chair.”
“You smiled every time you helped me into the car.”
“You patted my shoulder like a dog.”
Tobias raised his fist.
“Toby, no!” I shouted.
I grabbed his arm.
“Don't kill him.”
“Not here.”
“He needs to watch us take everything back.”
Tobias stopped his fist an inch from Garrett’s shattered nose.
He exhaled slowly.
He released Garrett’s throat.
Garrett lay on the carpet, clutching his broken wrist, sobbing like a child.
“You’re monsters,” Garrett wept.
“Both of you.”
I knelt beside my husband.
I took the gold wedding band from my coat pocket.
The one covered in river mud.
I jammed it down his throat.
Garrett choked, gagging and spitting blood.
“Swallow it,” I whispered into his ear.
“It’s the only part of me you get to keep.”
I stood up and turned to Arthur Campbell.
The old director stood frozen in place.
“Arthur,” I said.
“Call the state police.”
“Have Garrett and Marcus Vance taken into custody.”
“And tell the governor’s office that Mercer Shipyards is declaring an emergency
corporate lockdown.”
Arthur nodded rapidly.
“Whatever you need, Rosalind.”
“God forgive us for doubting your father.”
I turned to Tobias.
“We have fifty minutes.”
“Warehouse Nine.”
We took the private elevator back down to the loading dock.
We grabbed Marcus Vance’s unmarked police cruiser from the curb.
Tobias hit the sirens.
The cruiser tore through downtown traffic like a missile.
I opened the glove box.
Inside sat Marcus’s private tablet.
It was still logged into the harbor surveillance network.
I pulled up the live feed for Warehouse Nine.
The screen flickered.
A high-definition security camera showed the interior of the old dry dock.
In the center of the vast concrete basin stood a medical gurney.
Penelope was strapped to the metal frame.
Her face was deathly pale.
Standing beside her was an old man in a black wool coat.
He wore dark glasses.
A silver cane rested in his left hand.
Julian Sterling.
He was ninety years old if he was a day.
His face was covered in terrible, melted burn scars from the fire thirty years
ago.
Behind him stood four private contractors armed with submachine guns.
A doctor in surgical scrubs was preparing an array of instruments beside
Penelope.
“He’s going to do it now,” I gasped.
“He isn't waiting for noon.”
“Look at the monitor, Rosalind,” Tobias said, pointing to the screen while
steering through traffic.
In the corner of the dry dock basin sat an industrial valve.
A massive pipe marked: HARBOR FLOODGATE CONTROL.
“He’s not just harvesting the tissue,” Tobias said.
“He’s going to open the sea valves.”
“He’s going to drown the entire dry dock.”
“Penelope, the doctors, the evidence.”
“He’s going to wipe the facility clean.”
“He thinks that if the trust transfers to him at noon, no one will ever look
beneath forty feet of saltwater.”
We sped past the rusted iron gates of the outer port.
The sign read: RESTRICTED MILITARY AREA – NO TRESPASSING.
Tobias didn't slow down.
He rammed the police cruiser directly through the chain-link barricade.
Metal screamed.
The cruiser bounced over broken timber and rusted tracks.
Warehouse Nine loomed ahead like an iron mountain.
Its corrugated walls were black with age and industrial grime.
We skidded to a halt outside the main cargo entrance.
Tobias grabbed two tactical shotguns from the cruiser’s gun rack.
He tossed one to me.
“Do you know how to rack this?” he asked.
I grabbed the pump-action grip.
I racked the slide back with a sharp, heavy clack.
A 12-gauge shell chambered into the barrel.
“My father taught me before he taught me how to drive,” I said.
Tobias smiled.
“Let’s go meet our grandfather’s partner.”
We kicked open the service door.
The smell of brine and old oil hit us instantly.
From deep within the concrete basin, an amplified voice echoed through the
rafters:
“Welcome, children of Thomas Mercer.”
The voice was mechanical, processed through a throat synthesizer.
Julian Sterling knew we were here.
May you like
“You have your father’s stubbornness,” the speaker hissed.
“And you will share his watery grave.”
