Chapter 2 - FIFTEEN MEN BEFORE SUNRISE
Z
At 1:06 in the morning, Preston Caldwell stopped demanding a lawyer.
At 1:19, he started demanding his father.
At 1:42, he began shouting that Damon Blackwell had no idea who he was dealing with.
Matteo listened from across the library without changing expression.
“I think Mr. Blackwell knows exactly who he’s dealing with.”
Preston paced beside the fireplace.
He was thirty-one, blond, expensive, and handsome in the way inherited money often allowed cruel men to appear harmless.
“You kidnapped me.”
“No.”
“The gates are locked.”
“It’s Mr. Blackwell’s house.”
“You won’t let me leave.”
Matteo checked his watch.
“We asked you to wait.”
“For what?”
The library door opened.
Damon entered.
Preston pointed at him.
“My father is a United States senator.”
“I’m aware.”
“My cousin is a federal judge.”
“I’m aware.”
“My family will destroy you.”
Damon walked toward the table.
On it sat a laptop.
He turned the screen around.
Security footage showed Preston following Kate through the east corridor.
Another clip showed three men entering the library.
Another showed Kate stumbling out seven minutes later, clutching her arm.
Preston’s face changed.
Only slightly.
But Damon saw it.
“You don’t have sound.”
“No.”
“Then you have nothing.”
Damon clicked another file.
A hallway microphone picked up laughter.
A man’s voice said, “Preston saw her first.”
Another replied, “Don’t break this one.”
Preston stopped breathing.
Damon closed the laptop.
“That last sentence interested me.”
“That could mean anything.”
“It could.”
Damon leaned back.
“So I found the man who said it.”
The adjoining door opened.
A frightened young investment banker named Grant Ellis was brought inside.
Grant had spent the first hour protecting Preston.
The second hour crying.
By the third, he was talking.
“Tell him,” Damon said.
Grant would not look at Preston.
“It wasn’t the first time.”
Preston lunged.
Matteo stepped between them.
Grant continued.
“There were girls in Miami. New York. One in Boston.”
“Shut your mouth!”
“Some were employees.”
“Grant!”
“One was nineteen.”
Preston’s face drained.
Damon’s voice remained calm.
“How many men knew?”
Grant stared at the carpet.
“A lot.”
By 2:30, the number was fifteen.
Not fifteen attackers.
Fifteen men who had participated, watched, arranged rooms, intimidated women, destroyed complaints, paid settlements, or laughed while Preston bragged.
Some were still at the Blackwell estate.
Others were collected from hotels, townhouses, or cars before they reached the airport.
That was how the story would later begin.
Fifteen men vanished before sunrise.
What the newspapers would not initially know was that Damon had not killed them.
Kate had asked him not to.
So he did something worse to men whose entire identities depended on protection.
He made them talk.
At Saint Vincent’s Hospital, Kate sat beneath fluorescent lights while Dr. Reyes arranged a private orthopedic team.
She was exhausted.
Damon stood near the window.
“You should go,” she said.
“No.”
“You have fifteen rich psychopaths locked inside your house.”
“Fourteen.”
Kate looked over.
“Preston makes fifteen.”
“No. Grant Ellis is now cooperating.”
“That doesn’t make him innocent.”
Damon looked at her.
“No.”
Kate rested her head against the wall.
“What happens to them?”
“Some go to lawyers.”
“Whose lawyers?”
“Not theirs.”
Despite herself, she almost smiled.
Damon noticed.
It disappeared quickly.
“My mother cannot know.”
“About your arm?”
“About tonight.”
“She’ll ask.”
“I fell.”
Damon’s expression hardened.
Kate saw it.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Look at me like that because I want to lie.”
“You shouldn’t have to.”
“But I do.”
“Why?”
“Because she has cancer, Damon.”
It was the first time she had used his name.
Something in him went still.
Kate continued.
“My mother spends every morning wondering whether she’s going to die. I’m not adding ‘my daughter was attacked by a senator’s son’ to the list.”
Damon understood.
More than she expected.
“Then she hears whatever you want her to hear.”
The surgeon entered.
Two hours later, Kate woke after her arm had been set.
Damon was still there.
His tuxedo jacket was gone.
His sleeves were rolled.
His phone vibrated every few minutes.
At 5:11 a.m., Matteo called.
Damon stepped into the hall.
“We have fourteen statements,” Matteo said.
“And Caldwell?”
“Nothing.”
“His father?”
“On his way.”
Damon’s eyes hardened.
“Here?”
“He left Washington at three.”
“Of course he did.”
“There’s another problem.”
“What?”
“One of the fifteen never made it home.”
Damon went quiet.
“Which one?”
“Eric Voss.”
Damon knew the name.
A political fixer.
A man who handled problems for Senator Caldwell.
“When?”
“Car found near the Schuylkill. Blood inside.”
Damon looked through the hospital-room glass at Kate.
“You think Caldwell’s father is cleaning this up.”
“I think someone is.”
“Find Voss.”
“We are.”
“And Matteo?”
“Yes?”
“No one gets near Kate.”
When Damon returned, she was awake.
“You’re making that face again,” she said.
“What face?”
“The one where somebody is about to regret being born.”
He almost smiled.
Then Kate noticed something else.
Fear.
Not for himself.
For her.
“What happened?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“You promised me a choice.”
Damon said nothing.
“That means information.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“One of the men connected to Preston disappeared.”
Kate’s breathing slowed.
“You?”
“No.”
“Your people?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“We don’t know.”
Kate looked toward the dark hospital window.
The first gray hint of dawn touched Philadelphia.
“Damon.”
“Yes?”
“What if Preston isn’t the most dangerous Caldwell?”
Damon had already been thinking the same thing.
At 5:53 a.m., his phone rang again.
This time it was Senator Malcolm Caldwell himself.
Damon answered.
“Senator.”
The older man’s voice was cold.
“You have my son.”
“I do.”
“You will release him immediately.”
“No.”
A pause.
“You have thirty minutes, Blackwell.”
Damon glanced at Kate.
Then at the sunrise beginning behind the city.
“Senator.”
“Yes?”
“You seem confused.”
His voice lowered.
“You’re not coming here to retrieve your son.”
May you like
Another pause.
“You’re coming here to explain him.”
