Chapter 8
The crystal bourbon glass shattered against the floor, amber liquor splashing across Marcus’s patent-leather shoes.
Marcus choked, his face flushing crimson as his hands clawed frantically at Percival’s iron grip. His legs kicked helplessly against the limestone base of the column, his eyes bulging in pure, unadulterated terror.
"Percival... brother... what are you doing?!" Marcus wheezed through his crushed windpipe. "I’m your blood! I’m your underboss!"
Percival did not loosen his grip an inch. He leaned in until his stubbled jaw was less than an inch from Marcus’s ear, his voice dropping into that chilling, intimate whisper that had made federal judges weep in closed chambers.
"You traded my wife for forty percent of the narcotics corridors, Marcus," Percival said softly. "You put dental records from an unidentified corpse into a burned car, and you let me bury an empty coffin while you negotiated with Chicago."
Marcus’s struggling ceased instantly. The blood drained from his face, leaving him looking like an unburied corpse.
"She... she was a threat to the family, Percival," Marcus gasped out, his arrogance crumbling into desperate, pathetic justification. "She wanted you to go legitimate! She wanted you to sell the ports to the state authority! If you closed the shipping lines, we would have lost ninety million dollars a year! I saved the Hawthorne empire!"
"You saved your own greed, Marcus," Percival whispered. "Where was that sedan heading?"
"I don't know!" Marcus cried out, tears of agony leaking from his bloodshot eyes. "The driver... the driver works for Victor Valenti! They were moving her to the private airstrip in Teterboro! A Gulfstream is waiting on the tarmac to take her to a private sanitarium in Illinois!"
Percival slowly lowered his brother back to the floor, but kept his left hand clamped around Marcus’s collar, pinning him to the stone.
He reached into his jacket pocket and drew out his 1911 pistol. With calm, mechanical precision, Percival pressed the cold steel barrel against the center of Marcus’s kneecap.
"What time does the flight clear, Marcus?" Percival asked, his pauses deliberate, heavy as lead.
"Eleven-thirty!" Marcus screamed, his voice cracking into high-pitched hysteria. "Eleven-thirty on runway four! The flight plan is filed under an offshore agricultural charter! Don't shoot, Percival! I swear on our father's soul, that's everything!"
Percival did not pull the trigger. He lowered the weapon, stepped back, and looked at Garrick.
"Garrick," Percival commanded.
"Yes, Don Percival?"
"Strip Marcus of his family signet ring," Percival ordered, his voice flat as an iron plate. "Take his watch, his phone, and his credentials. Lock him in the cellar beside Isabetta. If either of them moves an inch, break their fingers."
"Understood, Boss."
Two soldiers seized Marcus by the lapels, dragging him weeping and pleading across the marble floor toward the basement service stairs, his designer shoes leaving long scuff marks on the pristine stone until the heavy doors slammed shut with concussive finality.
May you like
Percival turned his gaze toward the forty tactical soldiers standing in the foyer.
"Fuel the three armored Suburbans," Percival commanded, his baritone slicing cleanly through the quiet hall. "Call our customs contacts at Teterboro. Tell them to scramble the runway lights and lock down runway four. We have thirty minutes to intercept that plane."
