Chapter 3 - THE PRICE OF SILENCE
The heavy grill of the Maybach clipped the rear of Mercer’s town car.
Metal shrieked against metal.
The town car spun across the gravel, crashing into an empty freight car.
Mercer threw himself sideways into the mud.
The Maybach came to a halt in a spray of gravel and slush.
The driver’s door opened.
Adrien Voss stepped out into the freezing sleet.
He wore no coat.
His charcoal suit was pristine.
His tie was straight.
In his right hand, the Kimber .45 hung at his side.
He did not run.
He walked with the calm, measured stride of an executioner.
Two of Mercer’s hired enforcers scrambled out from behind a stack of rusted railroad ties.
They raised short-barreled shotguns.
Adrien didn't flinch.
He raised his arm and fired twice.
Bang. Bang.
The muzzle flashes lit up the dark depot in violent bursts of orange.
Both men collapsed into the gravel before they could rack their slides.
The silence that followed was absolute, punctuated only by the sizzle of raindrops on the hot hood of the Maybach.
Isabella looked up through wet strands of hair.
Her chest heaved.
She could not move.
Adrien stopped two feet in front of her.
He did not look down at the bodies.
He looked at her torn coat.
He looked at the fresh cut bleeding along her jawline.
Something cracked behind his dark eyes.
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“I told you to leave the key,” Adrien said softly.
His voice was smooth, like velvet over iron.
“I didn't tell you to leave my protection.”
Isabella’s breath hitched in a sob.
“Adrien... my brother...”
“I read the letter,” he said.
He stepped past her, his boots crunching on the stone.
Daniel Mercer was crawling through the mud toward his dropped revolver.
Adrien’s boot came down hard on Mercer’s outstretched hand.
The sound of snapping finger bones echoed through the rafters.
Mercer screamed, a high, pathetic shriek.
Adrien pressed his foot down harder, grinding the man’s knuckles into the sharp ballast.
“You entered my house,” Adrien whispered.
He leaned down slightly, staring into Mercer’s pale, sweat-slicked face.
“You touched her.”
“Adrien... please...” Mercer gasped, spittle flying from his lips.
“It wasn't... it wasn't my idea!”
Adrien tilted his head.
“Whose idea was it, Daniel?”
“Moretti!” Mercer choked out, tears mixing with the grime on his face.
“Don Moretti paid me! He wanted eyes inside your compound!”
“He said Isabella’s father owed him three million before he died!”
Isabella froze on the ground.
Her face drained of what little color remained.
“My father?” she whispered.
Mercer laughed through his agony, coughing up red-tinged phlegm.
“Tell him, Isabella!” Mercer shrieked.
“Tell him why you applied to be his housekeeper two years ago!”
Adrien’s eyes did not leave Mercer’s face.
Yet his posture stiffened.
The air around them grew dangerously cold.
“Isabella,” Adrien said, without looking back at her.
“Is that true?”
Isabella tried to speak, but her throat closed.
Her hands dug into the wet gravel.
“Answer me,” Adrien commanded softly.
“I... I had to,” Isabella wept into the sleet.
“Moretti had Leo in a private clinic.”
“He said if I didn't take the job at your estate, he would pull Leo’s life support.”
She looked up at Adrien’s broad, unmoving back.
“I was supposed to copy your safe combinations.”
“I was supposed to poison your coffee, Adrien.”
The silence stretched for five unbearable seconds.
Adrien stood completely still above Mercer.
Then, slowly, Adrien pulled his foot off Mercer’s broken hand.
He turned around.
His dark eyes locked onto Isabella.
There was no anger on his face.
There was only a terrifying, empty void.
“Did you?” Adrien asked.
“No!” Isabella cried, tears streaming down her bruised cheeks.
“Never! I poured the poison down the storm drain the first night!”
“For two years, I gave Moretti fake logs! I gave him empty manifests!”
“I swear to God, Adrien, I never hurt you!”
Adrien looked at her small, trembling frame.
He saw the raw truth in her eyes.
He saw the terror of an older sister who had carried an impossible cross for seven hundred days.
He turned back to Mercer.
“Where is the boy?” Adrien asked Mercer.
Mercer coughed, blood bubbling between his teeth.
“You’re too late, Voss,” Mercer grinned maliciously.
“Moretti’s men picked the kid up from the hospital an hour ago.”
May you like
“They’re taking him to the south docks.”
“And Moretti’s primary strike team is already at your front gate.”
