Chapter 5 - Divided Loyalties
Maggie took the stairs three at a time, her lungs burning, her sneakers squeaking against the wet tile. She burst into the main kitchen, startling two pastry cooks who dropped their rolling pins. She didn’t stop until she reached Vincent’s study on the second floor. She didn’t bother knocking; she turned the brass key in the lock, slammed the heavy door open, and threw it shut behind her, throwing the deadbolt.
Vincent stood by the window, phone pressed to his ear. He hung up immediately when he saw her disheveled hair, the torn collar of her work shirt, and the wild adrenaline in her eyes.
“Frank,” she breathed, leaning against the door frame, catching her breath. “Frank is in on it. He admitted it in the basement. Calvin promised him the south territory once you died. He was listening outside the door when you seized. He deliberately held me back so you’d suffocate.”
Vincent’s face darkened with a fury so cold it lowered the temperature of the room. He walked over to his desk, unlocked the bottom safe, and pulled out an encrypted hard drive along with a compact 9mm Glock. He walked over to Maggie, racked the slide with a crisp, practiced metallic snap, and pressed the pistol into her palm.
“I don’t know how to shoot this,” Maggie said, her hand trembling slightly under the weapon’s weight.
“You point the front sight at whatever threatens you and you squeeze,” Vincent said grimly. “Safety is off. Keep your finger off the trigger until you intend to destroy what you’re looking at.”
“What about the rest of the guards?” she asked. “How many of them belong to Calvin?”
“That is the problem,” Vincent replied, pacing toward the security monitor wall behind his bookcase. The screens flickered, showing live feeds of the front gate, the courtyard, the underground garages, and the perimeter fence. “Calvin handles payroll. He handles recruitment. For three years, I let him build the internal security apparatus while I focused on the interstate trade. Half those men might be loyal to my family name; the other half are loyal to Calvin’s checkbook.”
On screen four, they saw Calvin Rusk walking across the gravel courtyard toward the executive motorcade. He was flanked by four senior security officers—all carrying submachine guns inside long coats. Frank Delaney emerged from the service entrance, holding his bruised ribs, jogging up to Calvin’s car.
They saw Calvin lean out the window, listen to Frank’s frantic report, and nod once. Then Calvin picked up a radio.
Instantaneously, the estate’s power cut out.
The security monitors went dead. The overhead lights flickered and died. The hum of the air conditioning ceased, plunging the cavernous mansion into absolute, suffocating silence, illuminated only by the gray daylight filtering through the closed blinds.
“He’s cutting the lines,” Vincent said, his voice deadly quiet. “He knows the toxicology report will be back by noon. He can’t afford to let me walk out of this house alive.”
“Then we leave through the tunnels,” Maggie said. “The laundry chutes connect to the old coal cellar beneath the east greenhouse.”
Vincent looked at her, an unexpected wry smile touching his lips despite the impending slaughter. “You’ve mapped my estate better than my head of security.”
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“I’ve mopped every square inch of it, Mr. Moretti,” she answered, tightening her grip on the pistol. “When you clean up after rich people, you learn where all the dirt hides.”
Downstairs, the heavy oak front doors groaned as an electronic bypass sparked, followed by the heavy, synchronized sound of combat boots breaching the marble foyer.
