Chapter 8 - The Betrayal in the Study and the Fire from the Sky
The fluorescent desk lamp in Kieran Voss’s private office cast long, razor-sharp
shadows across the polished mahogany desk.
I sat in the high-backed leather chair opposite him, my hands folded so tightly
in my lap that my fingernails were cutting crescents into my palms.
Kieran stood by the window, pouring amber scotch into a heavy crystal tumbler.
He didn't drink. He just held the glass, watching the snow lash against the
triple-paned reinforced glass forty-eight stories above the city.
Then he set down the glass.
The heavy crystal hit the mahogany with a deliberateness that felt ten times
more violent than if he had hurled it against the wall.
"You went to my brother behind my back."
The words dropped between us like lead weights.
"Tell me why I shouldn't take that as a betrayal, Mila."
I swallowed the lump of ice in my throat, forcing my chin up, refusing to cower
before him. "Because you lied to me, Kieran! You've lied to me from the very
first night you walked into my trauma bay!"
Kieran slowly turned around. His face was a mask of cold, terrifying stillness.
"What did I lie about?"
I reached into my jacket, pulled out the bent manila folder, and slammed it down
onto the center of his desk.
"Operation Leverage!" I shouted, the rage finally breaking through my fear. "You
authorized the parathion! You poisoned my son to give yourself an excuse to wipe
out Marcus and seize the south docks!"
Kieran stared down at the folder. He didn't flinch. He didn't look surprised.
He walked slowly to the desk, opened the folder with two fingers, and glanced at
the forged signature on the bottom of the page.
Then, to my utter bewilderment, a low, humorless sound escaped his chest. It
wasn't a laugh. It was the sound of a man watching a tragic, predictable play
conclude its final act.
"Garrett gave you this," Kieran said quietly.
"Don't deflect!" I yelled, standing up. "Your signature is right there! Your
letterhead! Your private chemical warehouse!"
"Mila," Kieran said, his gray eyes fixing on mine with a raw, piercing clarity
that made my breath stall. "Who do you think runs the Calumet chemical storage
facility?"
I blinked. "You do. Voss Holdings."
"Voss Holdings is a parent corporation," Kieran said, his voice dropping into a
steady, surgical rhythm. "The logistics and chemical subsidiaries were placed
entirely under Garrett’s control four years ago. My father’s will dictated that
Garrett retain thirty percent operational autonomy over industrial warehousing."
The room seemed to tilt slightly.
"What?" I breathed.
Kieran pulled a key from his pocket, unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk, and
pulled out a stack of banking ledgers bound in black leather. He tossed them
open in front of me.
"Garrett wasn't shot by rival syndicate members three weeks ago," Kieran said,
his voice tight with an old, agonizing grief. "Garrett was shot because he tried
to steal fifteen million dollars in Thorne syndicate bond certificates from a
drop point in Cicero. He got caught. He ran to St. Clement's because he knew I
would protect him from Thorne’s retribution."
"No..." I backed away from the desk, my head spinning. "No, Garrett said you
were the one—"
"Garrett poisoned Noah," Kieran interrupted, each syllable hitting me like a
gunshot. "Garrett knew that if Marcus looked guilty of attacking a civilian
connected to me, I would execute Marcus without a formal tribunal. And once
Marcus was dead, Garrett was next in line to inherit the southern distribution
lines."
"Why would he do that to a five-year-old child?" I cried, tears blinding my
vision.
"Because Garrett is a sociopath, Mila!" Kieran’s voice finally cracked, rising
into a thundering roar that shook the glass walls of the study. "He doesn't see
people! He sees pawns! And the moment he realized you were beginning to trust
me, he knew he could use your fear to tear us apart!"
Kieran stepped around the desk, his hands coming up to grip my face with
overwhelming, desperate intensity.
"I have spent thirty-six hours tearing this city apart not to build an empire,
but to find the chemical lot number that matched the poison in Noah's blood,"
Kieran whispered, his eyes shining with unshed tears. "I found it two hours ago
at Garrett’s private loft on Racine Avenue. He didn't plan to fly you to
Montreal tonight, Mila. He planned to deliver you and Noah straight to Lorenzo
Thorne as hostages to guarantee his own survival."
The horror crashed over me in a suffocating wave.
Garrett wasn't my savior. He was the monster who had put my son on a ventilator.
"Oh God," I choked out, collapsing against Kieran's chest. "Oh God, Kieran, I
told him... I agreed to meet him at the service dock at 11:30!"
Kieran’s entire body went rigid.
He glanced at the digital clock on the wall.
11:29:45.
"Lev!" Kieran roared, turning toward the study door.
Before the word had even faded, the entire 48th floor of the Voss Tower exploded
into blinding light and thunderous, deafening violence.
May you like
A high-explosive thermite charge, planted on the terrace directly outside the
living room windows, detonated with the force of an artillery shell.
The reinforced glass shattered inward into a million lethal shards. The
shockwave threw Kieran and me across the study, slamming us into the mahogany
bookshelves as a massive fireball rolled across the ceiling, filling the
penthouse with black smoke, burning debris, and the screaming roar of the
Chicago wind.
