Chapter 10 - Traitors at the Banquet Table
Federal Prosecutor Thomas Vance stepped into the grand foyer flanked by six
armed federal agents.
Vance was a man of sixty, with steel-gray hair and eyes that had seen every
level of corruption in the state.
He had hunted my father for a decade.
He had tried to pin racketeering charges on me three times.
Yet tonight, he walked into my home not as an adversary, but as an official
taking custody of treasonous criminals.
He looked at the broken glass.
He looked at the blood stains being scrubbed from the marble.
Then he looked at me.
“Ethan Vale,” Vance said, extending a gloved hand.
“The Chicago news said you were scattered across Cook County in a thousand
pieces.”
“News reports are notoriously unreliable, Thomas,” I replied, shaking his hand
firmly.
I pointed toward the corner of the foyer where Marcus and Caroline sat
handcuffed to heavy iron chairs.
Marcus’s leg was bandaged with a tactical tourniquet, his face pale from shock
and blood loss.
Caroline was weeping hysterically, her designer makeup smeared into black
streaks across her cheeks.
“Two federal fugitives,” I told Vance, handing him Marcus’s leather ledger.
“Inside this book, you will find documented evidence of corporate sabotage,
three contract killings, and the attempted assassination of an American
citizen.”
“You’ll also find offshore account numbers linking them to illegal smuggling
rings in Eastern Europe.”
Vance flipped through the ledger, his eyes widening with every turn of the page.
A low whistle escaped his teeth.
“This is enough to put them away in a supermax facility until they’re eighty,”
Vance muttered.
“I want them prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” I said, my voice
echoing through the foyer.
“No plea deals. No reduced sentences. No bail.”
Caroline looked up, her voice screeching across the hall.
“Thomas! Thomas Vance, listen to me!” she wailed.
“Ethan is a monster! He orchestrated this! He forced Marcus to do it!”
Vance walked over to Caroline, looking down at her with cold disgust.
“Mrs. Ross,” Vance said, “your signature is on three corporate wire transfers
dated two days before the Chicago explosion.”
“You paid the demolition team seventy-five thousand dollars from your private
trust account.”
“Save your breath for the judge.”
He signaled his agents.
They hoisted Caroline up by her arms.
She kicked and thrashed, screaming my name over and over again.
“Ethan! You can't do this to me! You loved me! Ethan!”
I didn't even look at her.
My eyes remained locked on Marcus as two agents dragged him toward the door.
Marcus stopped for a second, his bloody boots dragging across the floor.
He looked back at me, his eyes hollowed out with the crushing weight of his
defeat.
“You’ll always be looking over your shoulder, Ethan,” Marcus whispered hoarsely.
“Men like us never find peace.”
“Men like you die in prison cells, Marcus,” I answered coldly.
“Men like me build something better.”
The front doors swung open into the cold night rain.
The federal agents loaded both of them into the back of the armored transport
vans.
The heavy steel doors slammed shut with a final, echoing boom.
The siren lights flashed against the wet oak trees as the convoy sped away
toward Manhattan.
The silence that followed was immense.
The air inside the mansion finally felt clean again.
The storm outside was beginning to ease, the heavy rain turning into a gentle,
rhythmic patter against the windows.
Rossi walked up beside me, lighting a cigar.
“The perimeter is secure, Ethan,” Rossi reported.
“The rest of Marcus’s crew laid down their weapons the second the Feds rolled
up.”
“We locked them in the boat house until morning.”
“Good,” I said.
“Pay your men double hazard pay tonight, Antonio. They earned it.”
“And what about you, boss?” Rossi asked, looking around the cavernous, quiet
hall.
“What happens to the estate?”
I looked at the grand staircase where I had once imagined carrying Caroline as
my bride.
I looked at the mahogany walls that had harbored betrayal.
“This house is getting renovated from the ground up,” I said.
“Every lock. Every camera. Every brick.”
“And the syndicate?” Rossi asked quietly.
“The Vale Syndicate is dead, Antonio,” I replied firmly.
“Tomorrow morning, Vale Logistics and Maritime Holdings files for public
incorporation.”
“We go straight. Completely.”
Rossi stared at me for a few seconds, then broke into a warm, genuine smile.
“Your father would be proud, Ethan.”
He tipped his hat and walked back out toward the courtyard to oversee the
perimeter sweep.
I turned around and saw Sophie standing near the library entrance.
She had changed out of her torn uniform into an oversized wool sweater and
trousers from the guest wing.
She looked small in the vast hallway, but her posture was straight.
Her eyes were clear.
“Mr. Vale?” she asked softly.
May you like
“It’s Ethan,” I corrected her gently, walking across the marble toward her.
“Just Ethan.”
