Chapter 4 - The Spider’s Web
Back at the grand estate in Lake Geneva, the last of the mourners had departed. The white carnations were being cleared from the marble floor by exhausted caterers, and the crystal chandeliers had been dimmed to a melancholy half-glow.
Marcus Reed stood alone near the massive stone fireplace in the main drawing room, holding a glass of amber whiskey. His tuxedo was immaculate, his posture upright, but his eyes darted toward the French doors every time the wind rattled the glass.
His cell phone vibrated in his breast pocket.
Marcus pulled it out, keyed a decryption code, and pressed it to his ear.
“Report,” Marcus said softly.
“We lost them on the North Side bypass,” a rough voice crackled through the secure line. “Vale’s car turned off toward the industrial sector before we could match his speed. We checked the security cameras, but someone wiped the traffic grid in sector four.”
“Incompetent fools,” Marcus hissed, his teeth clenching. “Find them. If Vale discovers what’s in that apartment, everything we spent five years building collapses overnight.”
“Should we hit the housekeeper’s residence?”
“Not yet,” Marcus ordered, pacing across the Persian rug. “Too many eyes on the estate tonight. Wait until dawn. Once Vale returns, plant the package in his study. Make it look like a rival syndicate leak. If the police find evidence that Vale was hiding contraband, his entire empire will be frozen by midnight.”
“Understood.”
The line went dead.
Marcus lowered the phone, taking a slow sip of his whiskey. He looked up at the enormous portrait of Evelyn Hart hanging above the fireplace. Her painted eyes seemed to stare down at him with an unsettling, knowing clarity.
“You shouldn’t have looked into the shipping manifests, Evelyn,” Marcus muttered to the empty room. “And Adrian shouldn’t have tried to play king. Some thrones are meant to be inherited by the people who actually do the work.”
Suddenly, the heavy oak doors of the drawing room swung open.
Marcus spun around, his hand instinctively dropping toward the holster hidden beneath his jacket.
Adrian Vale stood in the doorway.
His black suit was damp from the rain, his shoulders relaxed, his expression carved from stone. He walked into the room with the slow, predatory grace of a wolf that had already cornered its prey.
Marcus forced a tight, reassuring smile onto his face, slipping his hand away from his holster.
“Adrian. Thank God. The guests were beginning to ask questions when you vanished. Where have you been?”
Adrian stopped ten feet away. He didn't answer immediately. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a small, scorched piece of a pink infant blanket, and laid it gently on the mahogany table between them.
Marcus’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second.
“What’s that?” Marcus asked, his voice dropping an octave.
“A souvenir,” Adrian said softly. “From the wreckage you told me nothing survived.”
The silence that followed was absolute. The fire in the hearth crackled, casting dancing orange shadows across Adrian’s frozen face.
Marcus’s eyes flicked toward the door, calculating angles, escape routes, the distance to his weapon.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Adrian,” Marcus said, his voice hardening as the mask slipped away entirely. “I was with you every step of the way. If someone survived that crash, it wasn't me.”
“No,” Adrian agreed, taking one deliberate step forward. “It was Thomas Kane. Before he died in a safe house you spent six months trying to bomb.”
Marcus’s hand moved toward his jacket.
He was fast—fifteen years of field experience and underground warfare had made him lethal. But Adrian was faster.
May you like
Before Marcus’s fingers could clear the holster, Adrian crossed the distance between them, drove his fist straight into Marcus’s solar plexus, and slammed his former best friend against the stone pillars of the fireplace.
The whiskey glass shattered on the floor, amber liquid splashing across the Persian rug like spilled blood.
