Chapter 8 - The Falling of Crowns
No one fired.
The silence inside the grand dining room was terrifying, broken only by the heavy breathing of eight men who realized they were standing inside a giant, unexploded bomb.
“You’re insane,” Kozlov breathed, his silver beard trembling as he stared at the small red button in Damon’s hand. “You’d kill yourself just to take me down?”
“I died six months ago in Everett,” Damon replied, his dark eyes completely vacant of fear. “I’m just here to clean up the trash.”
One by one, Kozlov’s guards began lowering their weapons to the floor. They weren't soldiers fighting for a cause; they were hired muscle getting paid twenty-five dollars an hour. None of them wanted to be vaporized for an old man’s pride.
“Drop them,” Damon commanded softly.
The rifles clattered against the marble floor—one, two, four, eight. Within ten seconds, all eight men raised their hands and slowly backed out of the room through the rear terrace doors, fleeing into the stormy night.
Kozlov stood alone at the head of the long oak table, his velvet jacket looking suddenly ridiculous, his hands trembling against the mahogany.
“What do you want, Damon?” Kozlov asked, his voice losing its booming authority, replaced by the crackle of old age. “Money? Land? The harbor docks? Take them. Take all of it. Just let me take my private jet to Switzerland.”
Damon walked slowly down the side of the long table, his dark boots crunching over a fallen silver fork.
He stopped three feet from Kozlov.
He pulled the heavy Kimber .45 from his coat, laid it gently on the table between them, and pushed it toward the old man.
Kozlov blinked, looking down at the gun in utter confusion. “What is this?”
“An offer,” Damon said. “You take that gun, put it to your head, and end it yourself. Or I press this button, and we both burn.”
Kozlov stared at the blue-steel barrel of the pistol. His breath came in shallow, panicked hitches. He looked up at Damon’s hard face, searching for a single grain of mercy, a sliver of hesitation, a hint that it was all a bluff.
He found nothing. Just cold, empty iron.
Kozlov’s hand reached out, his spotted fingers touching the cool metal of the grip. He picked it up with shaking hands, his eyes wild.
For a fraction of a second, Kozlov aimed the gun at Damon’s chest.
“It’s not loaded, Viktor,” Damon said softly.
Kozlov pulled the trigger.
CLICK.
The empty chamber clicked harmlessly in the quiet room.
Kozlov dropped the gun as if it had burned him, collapsing back against the edge of the table, sobbing in sheer humiliation and defeat.
Damon reached out, picked up the empty pistol, slid a fresh magazine into the well, and chambered a round with a heavy, metallic CLACK.
“You don't even have the courage to die like a man,” Damon said quietly.
He didn't pull the trigger.
Instead, the heavy oak doors of the dining hall swung open, and Marcus stepped inside, followed by six armed federal agents in navy blue tactical vests marked FBI.
“Viktor Kozlov,” the lead agent announced, stepping forward with handcuffs drawn. “You are under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder, racketeering, and corporate espionage. Stand up and put your hands behind your back.”
Kozlov offered no resistance as the steel cuffs clicked around his wrists. He was dragged out of his own dining room, his velvet jacket torn, his head hanging low in absolute disgrace.
Marcus walked over to Damon, taking the black detonator from his hand. He looked at it, then turned it over, pressing the red button three times.
Click. Click. Click.
Marcus laughed softly, shaking his head. “A garage door opener from a 1998 Ford Taurus, boss?”
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Damon wiped a drop of rain from his brow and slipped the pistol back into his holster.
“Old men are always afraid of the dark, Marcus,” Damon said, turning toward the exit. “They’ll believe anything if you say it with enough conviction.”
