Chapter 4 - The Anatomy of Betrayal
The penthouse on Elm Street was completely dark when we breached the outer security door.
Carter Sterling didn't even have the sense to engage the deadbolts.
He was sprawled across an Italian leather couch, an empty bottle of scotch resting on the glass coffee table beside a line of white powder.
A television was blaring an infomercial in the corner of the room, casting blue light across his slack, arrogant face.
I walked over to the television and tore the power cord from the wall.
The sudden silence woke him.
Carter blinked, groggy and disoriented, his eyes struggling to adjust to the dim light.
“Adrian?” he slurred, pushing himself up on his elbows.
“What the hell are you doing here? It’s four in the morning.”
Marcus stepped into the room, locking the heavy mahogany door behind him.
I didn't answer right away.
I walked around the room, observing the luxury I had financed for this worthless human being.
The abstract oil paintings.
The floor-to-ceiling glass looking out over the city skyline.
The silk curtains.
All of it paid for with money I had earned through eighteen-hour workdays while he bled his sister dry with emotional blackmail.
“Ethan is in pediatric surgery at St. Matthew’s,” I said calmly.
Carter’s body went completely rigid.
The alcohol in his bloodstream seemed to evaporate in a split second, replaced by pure, blinding panic.
He looked toward the entrance, but Marcus stood before the door like an iron monument.
“I don't know what you mean,” Carter stammered, his voice rising an octave.
“Who’s Ethan?”
I stepped toward the sofa, moving slowly, deliberately.
“Do not play stupid with me, Carter.”
“You knew about him before I did.”
“You knew your sister was carrying my child while you sat across from me in my office, begging for fifty thousand dollars to clear your debts in Reno.”
Carter pulled his legs back against the cushions, retreating like a cornered animal.
“Claire told me to keep my mouth shut!” he cried out, raising his hands defensively.
“She made me swear on our mother’s grave that I wouldn't tell you!”
“She said you’d take the baby from her!”
“And you respected that secret, didn't you?” I asked, stopping two inches from his feet.
“You kept that secret right up until Julian Vance offered you two hundred thousand dollars to pay off Detroit.”
Carter turned dead white.
His mouth opened, but no sound came out.
The room felt like an airless vacuum.
“You knew Julian’s men were going to run her car off the highway,” I whispered.
“You knew Ethan was strapped in the back seat.”
“No!” Carter screamed, tears suddenly streaming down his gaunt cheeks.
“They told me they were just going to take the car! They said they were going to intimidate her so she’d call you for help!”
“They swore nobody would get hurt, Adrian! I swear to God!”
“You sold a ten-month-old child to a cartel enforcer,” I said, my voice dead, flat, and absolute.
“My son.”
Carter lunged off the couch, dropping to his knees, wrapping his arms around my legs in a frantic, weeping plea.
“Adrian, please! I’m Claire’s only family!”
“If you kill me, she will never forgive you!”
“She already hates you for what you did to her, but if you murder her brother, she will look at that baby and see you as a monster forever!”
The words hung in the air, toxic and heavy.
Carter looked up, his bloodshot eyes wide with desperation, believing he had found my weakness.
He was right.
Claire had spent her entire youth protecting this pathetic man because she had promised their dying mother that she would never abandon him.
If I put a bullet through Carter’s forehead tonight, I would erase the last possibility of Claire ever looking at me without horror.
I grabbed Carter by the hair, yanking his head backward until his spine arched painfully.
“You are right,” I whispered into his ear.
“I am not going to kill you.”
Carter let out a ragged, sob of relief.
“Thank you, Adrian—thank you—”
“Marcus,” I said, never breaking eye contact with Carter’s terrified face.
“Strip him of his passport, his phones, and every credit account tied to my corporate ledger.”
“Call the federal marshals in Detroit.”
“Give them the location of his offshore accounts and the signed receipts from the Cicero terminal.”
“Tell them Carter Sterling is ready to surrender on federal conspiracy and wire fraud charges.”
Carter’s eyes bulged with terror.
“No! Adrian, the people in Detroit will kill me in prison!”
“They’ll put me in a state facility with the guys I owe money to!”
“Then you had better learn how to run fast,” I said, releasing his hair so his face slammed hard against the parquet floor.
“You wanted money, Carter.”
“Now you’re going to spend the next twenty-five years paying for the air you breathe in a concrete box.”
May you like
I turned my back on him and walked toward the elevator.
Behind me, Carter’s screams of terror echoed down the empty corridor, bouncing off the glass and marble until the elevator doors closed, sealing him inside his own self-made hell.
