Chapter 3 - THE SKELETONS IN THE MARBLE
The rain outside the Blackwood Manor fell like shattered glass against the leaded windows.
The estate stood thirty miles north of Chicago, wrapped in iron fences and ancient oaks.
This was not a modern penthouse with glass balconies and designer furniture.
This was a fortress of hand-cut gray granite, built by Rosalind’s grandfather before the Voss name existed.
Inside the grand library, a fire roared in the stone hearth.
Rosalind sat in a wingback leather chair.
She had washed Sloane's cheap vanilla perfume from her skin.
She had replaced her ruined evening gown with a dark cashmere sweater and tailored slacks.
On her cheek, the red imprint of Sloane's hand had darkened into an angry violet bruise.
She did not flinch when Gideon placed a crystal glass of bourbon on the side table.
Gideon stood six-foot-three, wearing a tailored charcoal suit with his cufflinks undone.
He was twenty-eight years old, with his father’s sharp jaw and his mother’s merciless gray eyes.
As the eldest, Gideon ran the Voss syndicate’s corporate conglomerates, hedge funds, and political fronts.
He was the scalpel.
"The banks are locked," Gideon reported quietly.
His voice was smooth as polished marble.
"Father's offshore signatures in Zurich, Grand Cayman, and Luxembourg have been suspended."
"He has access to six thousand dollars in a petty cash account in Schaumburg."
"Nothing else."
Rosalind picked up the bourbon, swirled the amber liquid, and set it down without drinking.
"And the docks?" she asked.
The heavy oak door swung open with a muffled thud.
Beckett stepped into the room.
At twenty-six, Beckett was built like a war machine.
His knuckles were raw, split open across the bone, and fresh blood stained the cuff of his denim jacket.
He was the hammer.
The brother who controlled the South Side warehouses, the labor unions, and the enforcement crews.
"The docks are cold," Beckett said, wiping his bloody hand with a dry rag.
"Every crane from Calumet to Navy Pier stopped moving twenty minutes ago."
"Father tried to reroute two cargo ships from Rotterdam into Gary."
"My boys cut the mooring lines."
"The cargo stays in international waters until Mom says otherwise."
Rosalind looked up at her middle son.
"You're bleeding, Beckett."
"Not mine," Beckett replied with a feral grin.
He tossed a black tactical scope onto the low coffee table.
The lens was cracked.
"Sterling's mercenary was waiting across from the Drake Hotel."
"He had high-velocity armor-piercing rounds in the chamber."
"He wasn't aiming for Father's legs."
"He had orders to put Callum Voss in a morgue drawer before midnight."
Rosalind’s eyes did not widen.
Her fingers tapped the armrest with rhythmic precision.
"Sloane wasn't acting alone," Rosalind said.
It was not a question.
At the far corner of the library, the youngest brother sat surrounded by four glowing laptop screens.
Piers was twenty-three.
He wore a plain black hoodie and wireless earbuds.
He was the ghost.
The prodigy who lived in the city's fiber-optic veins, private servers, and surveillance feeds.
"She's been on Sterling's payroll for fourteen months," Piers said without looking up from his monitors.
His fingers danced across a mechanical keyboard with machine-gun speed.
"Every safehouse Father visited."
"Every cash drop Beckett scheduled."
"Every political payoff Gideon routed through Springfield."
"Sloane copied the files from Father's private tablet while he was asleep in her bed."
Piers hit a key, and a high-resolution surveillance feed filled the 70-inch monitor above the fireplace.
It showed the penthouse at the Waldorf Astoria.
Callum’s personal sanctuary.
Sloane Mercer was pacing across the marble foyer, shouting into a burner phone.
Her scarlet dress was wrinkled.
Her hair was a bird's nest of loose curls.
"She thinks she's safe up there," Beckett growled, cracking his bruised knuckles.
"Let me go down there, Mom."
"I'll drag her down forty flights of stairs by her extensions."
"No," Rosalind said.
Her single word froze all three brothers in place.
She stood up from the leather chair.
Her posture was straight, regal, unbroken by thirty years of underworld warfare.
"A dog does not hunt the flea," Rosalind said softly.
"You make the dog scratch until it tears its own skin off."
Piers chuckled darkly from his corner.
"What do you want to take from her first, Mom?" Piers asked.
Rosalind walked over to the fire and looked into the flames.
"Everything she thought made her better than me," Rosalind replied.
"Her apartment."
"Her cars."
"Her family name."
Gideon pulled out his phone.
"Her father is Arthur Mercer," Gideon said, reading from an encrypted dossier.
"He runs a commercial freight line out of Hammond."
"He owes twelve million to the Voss maritime union."
Rosalind turned back to her sons.
Her gray eyes burned with ancient, terrifying clarity.
"Call Arthur Mercer," Rosalind commanded.
"Tell him his daughter slapped the woman who signs his fuel permits."
"And tell him that if Sloane is not on her knees on my front porch by dawn..."
Rosalind paused, her voice turning into pure ice.
"...I will dredge the bottom of the Calumet River for what's left of his fleet."
Suddenly, Piers’s computer emitted a harsh, red alert tone.
The screen flickered.
A locked file from twenty years ago began to decrypt itself on the main screen.
Piers's hands stopped moving.
His face lost all its color.
"Mom," Piers choked out.
"What is it, Piers?" Gideon demanded, stepping behind his brother's chair.
Piers stared at the newly revealed police autopsy report from October 14, 2004.
The day Rosalind’s younger brother, Julian, drowned in a private yacht explosion.
"It wasn't an engine malfunction," Piers whispered, his voice trembling for the first time in his life.
"Look at the fuel log."
"The thermite charge that killed Uncle Julian was purchased by Arthur Mercer."
"And the authorization code on the delivery receipt..."
May you like
Piers looked up at his mother with horror in his eyes.
"...was signed by Callum Voss."
