Chapter 6 - The Coward In The Cellar
By 3:00 AM, the heavy wooden doors of the compound's sub-level cellar swung open.
Gabriel walked down the damp stone steps, followed by Leo.
Sitting on the concrete floor, handcuffed to an iron radiator and shivering in soaked clothes, was Thomas Foster.
He had been pulled from a commercial bus terminal in Albany four hours earlier, clutching a bag containing eighty thousand dollars in stolen cashier's checks.
When Thomas looked up and saw Gabriel Rossi descending the stairs, he began to weep hysterically, his knees knocking against the floor.
"Mr. Rossi! Please! I didn't know Sullivan was going to hurt her!" Thomas babied, snot running down his upper lip.
"I just needed time to get across the Canadian border! I thought they would just take the paintings in the studio as collateral!"
Gabriel stopped three feet away from the young man.
He didn't draw a gun, and he didn't raise a fist.
He simply looked down at Thomas with an expression of pure, unadulterated disgust that made the air feel freezing cold.
"She gave up her college scholarship to pay your gambling debts when you were nineteen, Thomas," Gabriel said, his voice flat, detached, and terrifyingly calm.
"She worked seventy hours a week restoring cracked porcelain in basements so you could get your accounting degree."
"I was going to pay her back!" Thomas cried. "I swear to God, once I got to Montreal—"
"You left your sister alone in an unlocked workshop to be beaten by wolves," Gabriel cut in, his words landing like iron bars falling into place.
"You used her gentle heart as a human shield so you could run like a sewer rat."
Gabriel reached into his pocket and pulled out the eighty thousand dollars in cashier's checks his men had recovered from the bus terminal.
He struck a match with his thumbnail, holding the flame to the corner of the paper.
Thomas screamed as the blue flame devoured the checks, turning his escape fund into black, crumbling ash that drifted onto his wet sneakers.
"Your debt to Sullivan is settled," Gabriel announced.
"Sullivan is in a trauma ward, and his operations have been dismantled by the district attorney's task force."
Thomas blinked through his tears, a faint, pathetic glimmer of hope touching his eyes.
"So... so I'm free?"
Gabriel leaned down until his face was inches from Thomas’s ear.
"You are exiled, Thomas," Gabriel whispered.
"My men will put you on a cargo freighter leaving for South America at dawn. If your feet ever touch American soil again, or if you ever send a letter, a phone call, or a whisper toward Meline... I will personally ensure that your body is never found."
Thomas sobbed, nodding frantically until his forehead hit the floor.
"Thank you, Mr. Rossi! Thank you! I promise! I'll never come back!"
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"Get him out of my sight, Leo," Gabriel commanded, turning his back on the pathetic wretch.
"And burn the clothes he was wearing. I don't want his cowardice lingering in this house."
