Chapter 6 - The Broken Diamond
Marcus stared at the dead plastic detonator in his shaking hands.
He clicked the button once.
Twice.
Three times.
Nothing happened.
The silent radio jammer in my palm pulsed with a soft blue light.
His empire of cards was tumbling down around his ears.
He dropped the useless trigger onto the Persian rug inside the vault.
“Ethan…” he whispered through the speaker.
His voice didn't have that arrogant swagger anymore.
It sounded thin.
Pathetic.
“We grew up together on the docks,” he pleaded, pressing his palms against the
thick glass.
“Remember the docks? When the Castellano crew had us pinned in that warehouse?”
“I took a bullet for you, Ethan!”
“I bled for you!”
I stared back at him through the reinforced glass.
My eyes didn't blink.
“You took a bullet for fifty grand and a share of the territory,” I said calmly.
“Don't dress up greed as loyalty, Marcus.”
“It insults both of us.”
Behind me, the dining room was in utter chaos.
Captain Rossi had disarmed the last of Marcus’s guards.
He stood over them, his gun drawn, breathing heavily.
“What do we do with the girl, Ethan?” Rossi called out.
I turned around slowly.
Caroline was still huddled on the marble floor.
Her designer gown was stained with wine and gunpowder soot.
Her hair was a tangled mess.
She looked up at me with wide, pleading green eyes.
The same eyes that had looked at me across candlelit tables in Paris and Rome.
She reached up, slipping the massive five-carat diamond ring off her trembling
finger.
She held it out to me like an offering.
“Ethan… my sweet Ethan…” she whimpered, tears streaming down her contoured
cheeks.
“He threatened my father. He said he would burn my family’s business to the
ground.”
“I was terrified! I only pretended to go along with him to stay alive!”
“Please… look at me. You know my heart.”
I walked toward her.
My boots crunched over broken crystal.
I stopped two feet away from where she knelt.
I looked down at the sparkling diamond resting in her outstretched palm.
The ring had cost seven hundred thousand dollars.
I had bought it in Antwerp after closing the shipping port deal.
I had thought she was my future.
I reached down and took the ring from her hand.
Her face lit up with a brief, desperate glimmer of hope.
“Oh, thank God—” she breathed.
I opened my fingers.
I let the diamond fall to the marble floor.
Then, with the heavy heel of my tactical boot, I brought my foot down with
crushing force.
CRACK.
The platinum band bent under the impact.
The diamond tore loose from its setting and skittered across the blood-slick
floor.
Caroline gasped, pulling her hands back as if she had been burned.
“You were never afraid of Marcus, Caroline,” I whispered, leaning down until our
faces were inches apart.
“You were afraid the money would stop.”
“You were afraid the penthouses and the private jets would disappear if I died
without leaving a will.”
“So you helped him speed up the timeline.”
She swallowed hard, her mouth opening and closing like a landed fish.
“I… I didn't…” she stammered.
“Sophie Bennett,” I said clearly.
Caroline flinched at the name.
“The maid who saw you and Marcus laughing in the cellar while my men were
dying,” I said.
“You ordered Marcus to execute her.”
“You didn't want any loose ends.”
Caroline’s expression shifted.
The tears vanished instantly.
The pleading, vulnerable girl disappeared behind a cold, vicious mask of venom.
She sneered, wiping the back of her hand across her face.
“You think you’re a god, Ethan?” she spat, her voice dripping with pure hatred.
“You think you own everything? You own people?”
“You dragged me into your filthy, bloody world!”
“You bought me like a show dog!”
“Marcus was going to give me freedom!”
I stood back up to my full height.
“Marcus was going to kill you the second the bank transfers cleared,” I said
simply.
I turned to Captain Rossi.
“Rossi.”
“Yes, boss?” Rossi replied instantly.
“Take her to the lower holding cells,” I ordered.
“Call Federal Prosecutor Vance.”
Rossi’s eyebrows shot up in shock.
“The Feds?” Rossi asked.
“We don't call the law, Ethan. That’s against the code.”
“The code died tonight,” I said, looking around at the shattered remains of my
home.
“Caroline wants freedom?”
“She can have twenty-five to life in a federal penitentiary for corporate
espionage and conspiracy to commit murder.”
“Let her explain her expensive tastes to the women in Danbury.”
Caroline’s eyes widened with genuine horror.
She lunged forward, clawing at my pant legs.
“No! Ethan, no! Not prison! Please! Kill me! Just shoot me!”
Rossi grabbed her roughly by the arms and dragged her backward across the
marble.
Her screams echoed down the long hallway until the heavy cellar door slammed
shut.
Now there was only Marcus left.
I turned back toward the library vault.
Through the glass, Marcus was staring at the ventilation shaft above his desk.
His eyes were wide.
He had realized something I hadn't noticed yet.
May you like
The auxiliary bunker was connected to the vault’s ventilation system.
And Sophie was still down there.
