Chapter 7 - The Blind Man In Warehouse Nine
I didn't turn around.
I didn't raise my hands.
Instead, I reached for a heavy glass jug of industrial alcohol on the counter
beside me.
I spun and hurled it directly into Marcus’s face.
The thick glass shattered against his chest.
The chemical fumes stung his eyes.
He roared in surprise, stumbling backward against the medicine racks.
“What the—” he spat, wiping his face.
I lunged forward.
I drove the heel of my boot into his knee.
He grunted and fell to one side.
His service weapon clattered across the linoleum.
I scooped up the gun.
I pointed it straight between his eyes.
Marcus froze.
His hand stayed hovering above the floor tiles.
He looked at the barrel.
Then he looked up into my face.
The mask had slipped down my chin.
His mouth dropped open.
“Rosalind?” he breathed.
Color drained from his leathery face.
“You’re dead.”
“We dragged the river.”
“The car was crushed like an accordion.”
“I’m very much alive, Marcus,” I whispered.
The safety was off.
My finger rested lightly against the curved metal trigger.
“And you’re going to tell me what Garrett promised you fifteen years ago.”
Marcus swallowed hard.
His eyes darted toward the hallway door.
“I don't know what you’re talking about,” he stalled.
“You took a payoff from Garrett’s father to fake the crash report on my
parents,” I said.
“You hid the brake lines.”
“You told the city it was black ice.”
“Then you let Tobias rot in a wheelchair for fifteen years while you collected
checks from the Vance holding company.”
A bitter smirk formed on Marcus’s lips.
“You don't have the stomach to pull that trigger, Rosalind,” he mocked.
“You’re a Mercer.”
“You people sign checks and attend charity balls.”
“You don't pull triggers.”
I stepped forward.
I pressed the steel muzzle directly against his forehead.
The metal bit into his skin.
“Try me,” I said.
My voice didn't waver.
There was no fear left in me.
There was only an abyss.
Marcus’s smirk vanished.
Cold sweat broke out on his brow.
“It wasn't Garrett’s father,” Marcus stammered.
“What?”
“Garrett’s father died broke,” Marcus confessed.
“He was an old drunk.”
“He didn't have the brains to plan an assassination.”
“Then who paid you?” I demanded.
“Warehouse Nine,” Marcus gasped.
“The blind man.”
“He’s the one who bankrolled the whole thing.”
“He bought the Vance debt ten years ago.”
“He owns Garrett.”
“He owns Penelope.”
“He owns half the harbor board.”
My mind raced.
The blind man?
Warehouse Nine was an abandoned dry dock facility at the southern edge of the
shipyard.
It had been sealed since my grandfather’s era.
“What is his name?” I hissed.
“I never saw his face!” Marcus cried out.
“He sits behind a glass partition in the old control room!”
“He speaks through a synthesizer!”
“He told Garrett that both of you had to die before noon today!”
“Because at noon, the Mercer trust deeds automatically transfer to the port
authority unless the original owners sign in person!”
“And the blind man controls the port authority!”
The pieces snapped together with terrifying clarity.
Garrett wasn't the mastermind.
Garrett was just the executioner.
A greedy, vain, treacherous pawn sent to clear the board.
I took a zip-tie from the medical utility shelf.
I pulled Marcus’s hands behind his back.
I cinched his wrists until the plastic bit deep into his flesh.
I shoved a roll of gauze into his mouth.
I locked him inside the dispensary storage closet.
I grabbed the clotting factors from the floor.
I ran down the back stairwell.
I reached the pickup truck within three minutes.
I sped back to Chen’s clinic.
My hands gripped the wheel so hard my knuckles popped.
When I entered the back room, Chen was already waiting.
I threw him the vials.
“Administer it,” I ordered.
Chen worked with surgical precision.
He injected the solution into Penelope’s IV line.
Within ten minutes, the crimson discharge stopped.
The fetal heartbeat monitor stabilized.
The steady rhythm filled the concrete room.
Tobias stood against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Did you get the meds?” he asked.
“I got the meds,” I answered.
“And I got Marcus Vance.”
Tobias’s eyes flared.
“Is he dead?”
“He’s locked in a hospital closet with zip-ties on his hands,” I said.
“He gave up the man behind the curtain.”
Tobias stepped forward.
“Who?”
“Warehouse Nine,” I said.
“Marcus called him the blind man.”
Tobias’s face went rigid.
A look of ancient, sickening comprehension washed over his features.
“No,” Tobias whispered.
“That’s impossible.”
“You know who it is?” I asked.
Tobias walked over to Dad’s fireproof lockbox.
He pulled out the flash drive.
He pointed to the corner of the metal case.
There was an emblem stamped into the steel.
An anchor entwined with two serpents.
“Grandfather’s old partner,” Tobias murmured.
“Julian Sterling.”
“Julian died in a fire thirty years ago!” I argued.
“Dad went to his funeral!”
“Julian didn't die,” Tobias rasped.
“He went blind in that fire.”
“He changed his identity.”
“He bought up the port authority through dummy corporations.”
“He’s been waiting thirty years to steal this shipyard from our family.”
Suddenly, the ultrasound monitor beside Penelope let out a shrill scream.
The heartbeat flatlined.
Chen dropped his syringe.
“She’s having an allergic reaction to the clotting factor!” Chen yelled.
“Her airway is closing!”
Penelope’s face turned deep purple.
She clawed at her throat.
She gasped for air that wouldn't come.
Tobias reached for an intubation tube.
Before he could touch it, the steel door of the warehouse blew inward.
A concussion grenade detonated with a deafening roar.
White light blinded my eyes.
The concussive wave threw me against the concrete floor.
Through the ringing in my ears, I heard heavy boots.
Dozens of them.
Assault rifles clicked off safety.
A voice with a mechanized, raspy hum echoed through the smoke:
May you like
“Bring the girl.”
“Kill the rest.”
