Chapter 4
The word 'boss' hung in the conservatory like a suspended blade.
Torsten didn't shout. He didn't roar. He simply reached into his right jacket pocket, pulled out a monogrammed linen handkerchief, and slowly wiped a stray fleck of Merrick’s blood from his gold signet ring.
"Bruno," Torsten said.
"Yes, Boss?"
"Bring my brother out here."
A ripple of renewed terror parted the guests along the north wall.
From the shadowed alcove where the vintage port and digestifs were being served, a man stepped into the daylight.
Arthur Whitmere. Torsten’s younger brother by four years. Julian’s father.
Arthur was thinner than Torsten, his suit impeccably cut but hanging slightly loose over a frame that had spent forty years in boardrooms and political backrooms rather than the streets. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles, his fair hair completely silver, his expression frozen in a mask of calculated indifference.
He held a crystal glass of bourbon in his left hand. The ice hadn't melted.
"Arthur," Torsten said without turning around. "Did you know your boy was booking trips to Manhattan?"
Arthur took a measured sip of his bourbon. He didn't look at his son. He didn't look at Merrick groaning on the floor. He looked directly at Torsten’s back.
"The world moves forward, Torsten," Arthur said, his American accent flat, nasal, devoid of warmth. "Our grandfather started this outfit with bootleg whiskey in wooden barrels. You turned it into cargo containers and port logistics. Julian wanted to turn it into digital equity and synthetic pharmaceuticals. That’s the natural evolution of capital."
"I asked you a question, Arthur," Torsten said, turning around to face his brother. "Did you know he was at the lake house?"
Arthur paused. The glass in his hand stayed steady.
"I knew Merrick was having marital difficulties," Arthur replied smoothly. "I knew Lavinia was being… uncooperative regarding the restructuring of the maritime trust. As the executor of the family’s legal portfolio, I advised Julian to resolve the matter before the anniversary reception. How he chose to execute that directive was his operational discretion."
Lavinia stood up from the bench.
The emerald dress swayed around her bruised body. She ignored the agony in her fractured clavicle, stepping forward until she stood beside her father, her eyes blazing with a fury that mirrored Torsten’s own youth.
"Operational discretion?" Lavinia shouted, her voice echoing off the glass dome. "He told Merrick to break my neck, Uncle Arthur! He stood at the top of the stairs while his lackey kicked me in the ribs! I grew up in your house! I played with Julian on your lawn!"
Arthur adjusted his spectacles with a dry, manicured finger. "And I bought you your first horse, Lavinia. I paid for your tuition at Columbia. Business is not conducted on the playground. If you had signed the proxy papers when they were delivered to your townhouse on Tuesday, you would be sitting here tonight toasted as a hero of our modernization. Instead, you acted like an emotional child."
"She acted like a Whitmere," Torsten said.
The words were an execution sentence.
Julian felt it before his father did. The younger man’s hand twitched toward the interior of his tuxedo jacket.
He never cleared the leather.
Torsten closed the five-foot distance in a fraction of a second. His left hand clamped onto Julian’s lapel, dragging him forward with the terrifying, explosive strength of a man who had choked competitors to death in loading docks thirty years prior. Torsten’s right hand whipped out, catching Julian’s right wrist, twisting it violently downward.
There was a muffled click as a small, compact automatic slid from Julian’s fingers and clattered onto the marble floor.
Julian gasped, trying to drive his knee into Torsten’s groin, but Torsten spun him with brutal efficiency, slamming his nephew’s face straight into the edge of the stone fountain.
The impact was sickening.
Julian’s nose crumpled against the wet granite with a dull thud. Water splashed over the rim, soaking his hair and his Italian silk jacket.
May you like
Torsten held him there, one hand buried in the back of Julian’s collar, pressing his face into the cold, shallow water, right next to where the torn drawing had floated moments before.
"You want to talk about capital, Arthur?" Torsten asked, his voice steady, his breathing not even elevated. "Let’s talk about liquidation."
