Chapter 6 – THE TRAITOR’S BLOOD

The gunshot inside the glass office was deafening.

Margaret screamed as the bullet tore through her shoulder. She collapsed to the floor, her small pistol clattering away, blood instantly blooming across her white trench coat.

“Margaret!” I gasped, horrified.

Vivian Whitmore didn’t even flinch. She looked down at her bleeding daughter with cold, reptilian detachment.

“I raised a queen, and she turned out to be a sentimental fool,” Vivian sneered. She turned her gun toward Vincent.

But Vincent was already moving.

He didn’t shoot Vivian. He lunged forward with terrifying speed, slamming the butt of his rifle directly into Vivian’s jaw. The elegant older woman crumpled to the floor, unconscious before she even hit the ground.

Judge Vance panicked. He tightened his grip on my mother and pulled the hammer back on his revolver.

“Back off!” Vance screamed, his silver hair wild, his eyes wide with desperation. “I’ll kill her, Vincent! I swear to God!”

I couldn’t wait anymore. I couldn’t let him shoot my mother.

I grabbed a heavy brass paperweight off the supervisor’s desk and hurled it with everything I had.

It struck Vance squarely in the wrist.

He cried out in pain, his grip slipping. The revolver fired wildly into the ceiling.

Vincent didn’t waste the fraction of a second. He tackled Vance to the floor, the two older men crashing through a glass coffee table.

I dove toward my mother. I frantically peeled the duct tape off her mouth and began untying the thick ropes around her wrists.

“Emily!” my mother sobbed, burying her face in my shoulder. “Oh my god, Emily!”

“I’ve got you, Mom. I’ve got you,” I cried, holding her tight.

Across the room, Vincent had Vance pinned to the floor. The Judge was old, but he was fighting with the feral desperation of a cornered rat. Vance grabbed a shard of broken glass from the table and slashed it toward Vincent’s throat.

Vincent dodged, taking a deep cut across his forearm.

He grabbed Vance’s collar and slammed his fist into the Judge’s face. Once. Twice.

Vance went limp, coughing up blood, his nose shattered.

Vincent stood up, his chest heaving. He picked up his handgun and aimed it directly down at the man who had murdered his mother, blackmailed his father, and sent Arthur to prison.

“Wait,” Vance wheezed, holding up a bloody hand. He laughed weakly, a wet, sickening sound. “You can’t kill me, Vincent.”

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t empty this magazine into your chest,” Vincent said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper.

“Because I’m a federal judge,” Vance smiled, his teeth stained red. “The police are already outside. I hear the sirens. If you kill me, it’s murder in the first degree. You lose everything. Your empire, your freedom, your life.”

Vincent slowly cocked the hammer of his gun.

“I lost everything thirty-three years ago,” Vincent said.

His finger tightened on the trigger. He was going to do it. He was going to throw his life away to avenge his parents.

“Vincent, no!”

Arthur Bennett stepped into the glass office.

The seventy-four-year-old man was leaning heavily on a cane, escorted by two of Vincent’s guards. He had refused to stay at the safehouse.

Vincent looked at him. “Arthur, turn around.”

“Don’t do it, son,” Arthur pleaded, limping forward. Tears streamed down his wrinkled face. “Don’t let him turn you into a murderer. That’s what he wants. He wants to drag you down to hell with him.”

“He killed my mother, Arthur!” Vincent yelled, his voice cracking with thirty years of repressed grief.

“And he took five years of my life!” Arthur yelled back, his voice surprisingly strong. “But if you shoot him, you leave Catherine without a brother! You leave Leo without an uncle! Your father gave up his soul to keep you out of a prison cell, Vincent. Do not throw his sacrifice away!”

Vincent froze.

He looked at Arthur. Then he looked at the birth certificate sitting on the desk. Catherine was his sister.

Then Vincent looked at me. I was holding my terrified mother, pleading with him with my eyes.

Vincent’s breathing slowed. The murderous rage in his eyes flickered, replaced by the heavy, exhausting weight of reality.

He uncocked the gun.

He didn’t shoot Vance. Instead, he kicked the Judge viciously in the ribs, leaving him groaning on the floor.

“Take the documents,” Vincent ordered his men, pointing to the briefcase Vivian had dropped. “Send the bank statements and the confession letters anonymously to the FBI corruption task force. They’ve been trying to nail Vance for ten years. Now they have the coffin.”

Sirens wailed outside. The red and blue lights flashed through the warehouse windows.

“We’re leaving,” Vincent said.

He helped my mother to her feet. We left Judge Vance and Vivian Whitmore bleeding on the floor of the office, waiting for the police to find them alongside thirty years of undeniable evidence.

Margaret lay in the corner, clutching her bleeding shoulder. Vincent paused beside her.

“Vincent, please,” Margaret whimpered.

Vincent looked at her with pure indifference. He reached down and unclasped the sapphire necklace from her throat.

“This belongs to my mother,” Vincent said.

He walked away, leaving the Whitmore family to rot.

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