Chapter 8 - The Cornered Monster
Daniel didn't look like a high-society businessman anymore. He looked like a rabid dog backed into an alleyway. As Detective Morrison approached him with the handcuffs, something inside Daniel’s twisted, narcissistic brain finally snapped.
He lunged upward from the floor. But instead of surrendering, he grabbed a heavy, solid-brass altar candlestick, swinging it wildly with both hands.
“Stay back!” Daniel howled, his eyes bulging, spit flying from his lips. “Stay away from me! None of you understand! That company belonged to me! I ran those ships! I handled the unions! Her father was an old fool who didn't know how to squeeze a profit! Everything in that house was mine! I earned it!”
The congregation screamed as people scrambled over pews to get away from the front of the church.
“Drop the weapon, Daniel!” Detective Morrison commanded, drawing his service weapon and aiming it directly at Daniel’s chest. “Drop it right now, or I will put you down!”
Daniel backed up against the empty mahogany casket, his chest heaving, his gaze darting from the barrel of the gun to where I stood holding our son. His face contorted into an expression of pure, unadulterated venom.
“You should have stayed dead, Claire!” he screamed, raising the heavy brass candlestick high above his shoulder, preparing to throw it directly at me and the baby. “If I can’t have your father’s fortune, nobody will!”
He never got the chance to throw it.
From the front pew, Captain Miller—a retired Navy SEAL and my father’s oldest friend—vaulted over the wooden partition with astonishing speed. Before Daniel’s arm could swing forward, Captain Miller drove his shoulder into Daniel’s ribs with the force of a freight train.
The heavy candlestick clattered harmlessly against the stone steps. Daniel let out a sharp, agonized crack as his back slammed violently against the brass rim of his own empty casket.
Before he could recover, three state troopers swarmed over him, pinning his limbs to the marble floor. A sharp metallic click echoed through the church as the handcuffs snapped tightly around his wrists, followed by another pair around his ankles.
“Daniel Hayes,” Detective Morrison said, placing his knee firmly into the small of Daniel’s back, grinding his cheek into the very floor where he had planned to celebrate his triumph. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
Daniel thrashed against the floor, screaming obscenities, cursing my father, cursing my son, cursing the day he had ever met me. But as they hauled him roughly to his feet, his tailored suit ripped and covered in dust, his bloody nose dripping onto his silk tie, his eyes met mine one final time.
I stepped forward until I was standing inches from his face. Baby Michael was resting quietly against my shoulder, sleeping through his father’s disgraceful downfall.
“Do you remember what you whispered in the nursery, Daniel?” I asked, my voice as calm and cool as deep ocean water.
Daniel glared at me, his teeth bared in hatred.
“You said, ‘Finally, we can have everything,’” I whispered, looking straight into his broken eyes. “You were right about one thing. Everything my father built, everything I own, and every beat of this little boy’s heart belongs to us. But as for you, Daniel... you leave this room with nothing.”
May you like
I turned my back on him.
The troopers dragged Daniel Hayes backward down the central aisle of Saint Michael’s Cathedral, his boots scraping uselessly against the stones as the reporters’ flashbulbs exploded in a blinding storm of white light, capturing his permanent humiliation for the entire nation to witness.
