Chapter 5
Everard closed the distance in two strides.
He didn't fire a second round. He grabbed Cassian by the nape of his silk tuxedo collar and yanked him upright with one hand, hoisting the forty-three-year-old man off his feet until Cassian’s patent leather shoes dangled four inches above the floor.
Cassian gagged, his hands clawing desperately at Everard’s wrists. "Everard... please... we’re brothers... the same father... the same blood..."
"Blood doesn't buy you mercy in this house," Everard said, his voice as cold as deep sea water. "It buys you an obligation. And you failed it."
He slammed Cassian downward across the rim of the marble fountain. The breath detonated from Cassian’s chest in a violent spray of spit and blood, his ribs cracking against the stone. Everard planted the heavy sole of his oxford onto Cassian’s right wrist, pinning his arm to the flagstones with five hundred pounds of crushing force.
Cassian shrieked, tears and mucus streaming down his rosy face, ruining his manicured features. "I’ll tell you everything! I’ll tell you who funded it! It wasn't just me and Aurelia!"
Everard leaned down, pressing the cold, heavy barrel of the 1911 directly against the center of Cassian’s forehead.
"Talk."
"The Marasquin family," Cassian wheezed, his fingers spasming in the dirt. "Out of Montreal. They wanted the deep-water shipping access to move their fentanyl imports into New York without going through customs! They promised me sixty million dollars in offshore bearer bonds if I delivered the port authority trust by the end of this month!"
"And what did they promise Aurelia?" Everard asked, his thumb thumbing back the hammer with a sharp, lethal click.
"The real estate holdings!" Cassian sobbed. "The brownstones in Boston! The private trusts in Delaware! They told us you were getting soft, Everard! They said you spent all your time playing house with that woman and the kid! They said the Vanderley family was ripe for a liquidation!"
"Where are the Marasquin representatives tonight?" Everard demanded.
Cassian’s eyes rolled frantically toward the ceiling, terrified of the answer he was about to give.
"They’re... they’re outside," Cassian gasped. "In the catering trucks parked on the lower perimeter drive. They were supposed to extract Honora tonight. They had a medical transport... they were going to move her to a private clinic in Quebec to finish the paperwork."
Everard did not blink. He pulled his satellite phone from his vest pocket with his free hand, keeping his foot firmly planted on Cassian’s wrist, and dialed a single encrypted digit.
"Vance," Everard said into the receiver.
"Sir," his harbormaster’s voice crackled through the secure line.
"The two refrigerated catering trucks parked by the north gatehouse," Everard commanded. "Surround them with the heavy transport vans. Put three hundred rounds through the side panels of each truck. Do not leave a single survivor."
"Understood, Mr. Vanderley. Executing now."
Cassian let out a strangled, horrified moan. "Everard, no... that’s an international syndicate... you’ll start a war across the entire northeast border!"
"I don't start wars, Cassian," Everard said, removing his foot from the broken wrist and stepping back. "I conclude them."
May you like
He turned his back on his weeping brother and pointed at Keller, who had followed him into the conservatory with two armed bodyguards.
"Drag him into the cellar," Everard ordered. "Tie him to the support column next to Aurelia. I want them both awake when the sun comes up."
