Chapter 12 - The Wolf Trapped
Marcus Vance did not intend to spend the remainder of his life in a federal penitentiary.
As the two federal agents moved toward him with chrome handcuffs drawn, Marcus shoved the nearest agent violently into the conference table.
He ripped his concealed sidearm from beneath his jacket, firing a deafening shot into the acoustic ceiling tile.
Plaster and electrical wiring showered down across the screaming board members.
Panic turned the room into a stampede as corporate executives scrambled over chairs and dove beneath tables.
Marcus lunged through the drifting dust, his arm sweeping out to grab Ava by the throat.
He never reached her.
Nico anticipated the move, planting himself directly between Marcus and Ava like an impenetrable wall of iron.
Nico’s left arm blocked Marcus’s gun hand, driving the weapon upward just as a second round discharged harmlessly into the concrete pillar.
With a roar of fury, Nico drove his right elbow into Marcus’s jaw.
The crack of breaking bone echoed through the corridor as Marcus stumbled backward, spitting blood onto the white carpet.
Marcus shook his head, clearing the haze, and swung his heavy pistol like a club.
The steel barrel caught Nico across the cheekbone, opening a jagged cut that sprayed crimson across his white collar.
Ava cried out in horror, but Nico didn't even blink.
The pain only seemed to fuel the cold, volcanic wrath that had simmered inside him for ten years.
Nico tackled Marcus around the waist, slamming the older security chief through the reinforced plate-glass partition into the executive library.
Both men crashed into rows of antique mahogany bookshelves, sending thousands of leather volumes tumbling across the floor.
Marcus rolled over, reaching for the fallen gun with wild desperation.
Ethan stepped through the shattered glass frame, his heavy combat boot coming down with crushing force onto Marcus’s wrist.
A sickening crunch echoed through the room as the bones in Marcus’s forearm shattered.
Marcus let out a shrill scream of agony, his fingers releasing the pistol instantly.
Ethan kicked the weapon twenty feet away, sending it sliding across the polished floor toward Ava.
Ava immediately kicked the firearm beneath a heavy brass credenza, out of anyone's reach.
Nico hauled Marcus up by the lapels of his shredded designer suit, slamming him against the reinforced exterior window overlooking the city street fifty floors below.
The glass behind Marcus creaked under the immense weight of the impact.
Marcus gasped for breath, blood bubbling from his mouth, his arrogance completely broken.
"Who else, Marcus?" Nico snarled, his face inches from the traitor's eyes, his voice dripping with venom.
"Who else helped Helena plant that bomb ten years ago?"
Marcus coughed, looking past Nico toward Ethan’s stone-cold face.
"It was just us, Nico," Marcus wheezed, his voice trembling with genuine terror.
"Helena promised me thirty percent of the offshore holdings if Ethan was eliminated."
"And last night?" Nico pressed harder, his forearm crushing Marcus’s windpipe against the glass.
"Who loosened the chandelier in my conservatory?"
"I did," Marcus whispered, choking on his own blood.
"Helena gave the order after the market closed yesterday."
"She knew you were close to finding the shell accounts."
"She told me to make it look like an accident before the board could vote."
"You served my father for twenty years," Nico said, his eyes burning with devastating sorrow.
"He brought you into our home."
"He treated you like a brother."
"Your father was weak, Nico," Marcus hissed, his lips curling into a bloody sneer.
"He cared too much about honor, just like Arthur Collins."
"Honor doesn't pay for estates like this."
Nico’s grip tightened until Marcus’s face turned deep purple.
Ava stepped forward through the broken glass, laying a gentle hand on Nico’s tense forearm.
"Nico, stop," Ava said softly.
"Don't kill him."
"If you drop him from this window, you become the monster Helena wants you to be."
"Let him rot in a dark cell for the rest of his miserable life knowing he failed."
Nico stared at Marcus for three agonizing seconds, his muscles coiled like tight steel springs.
Slowly, deliberately, Nico pulled Marcus away from the glass and threw him to the floor at the feet of the waiting federal marshals.
"Take this garbage out of my building," Nico ordered, wiping blood from his cut cheek.
The marshals pinned Marcus to the floor, snapping steel cuffs tightly around his wrists and ankles.
As they dragged the bleeding security chief toward the service elevators, the screech of a private jet engine resonated from the rooftop above.
Ethan looked up toward the ceiling, his eyes narrowing sharply.
"Helena slipped away during the panic," Ethan said, pointing toward the emergency stairwell door swinging open.
May you like
"The helipad," Nico realized, his jaw clenching.
"She has a chartered chopper waiting on the roof."
