Chương 9
“You never asked.”
“I shouldn’t have had to.”
That was also true.
Dante’s instinct was to defend the decision: the agents outside, the money, the informant who had triggered the raid, the belief that everyone would escape through the loading bay. The facts lined themselves up like obedient soldiers.
None changed the roof.
“I was wrong,” Dante said.
Marcus stared at him.
The words came too late and sounded smaller than the damage. Dante did not decorate them.
“I locked the doors,” he continued. “I chose the money. Adrian died because I made that choice.”
Marcus’s face did not soften.
“Do you expect that to save you?”
“No.”
“Then why say it now?”
“Because it’s true now too.”
Marcus’s finger tightened near the trigger.
“You get to discover honesty when it costs you nothing.”
“It costs me the defense I’ve used for eight years.”
“That defense only worked on you.”
Below them, Zoe’s voice became faintly audible.
She was speaking into the phone.
Dante could not make out the words, but he heard his own name.
Marcus heard it too.
His rifle swung toward the pantry.
Dante fired.
The bullet struck the rifle’s suppressor and knocked the barrel sideways. Marcus fired at the same instant. The suppressed shot tore through a cabinet above Dante’s shoulder, exploding ceramic plates into white fragments.
Dante crossed the distance before Marcus recovered.
He drove his injured forearm beneath the rifle and pushed upward. Marcus struck him in the ribs with the weapon’s stock. Pain flashed across Dante’s side. He kept hold.
They collided against the island. Pears rolled across the marble floor. The ceramic spoon container fell and shattered.
Marcus’s wounded hand slipped.
Dante twisted the rifle away, but Marcus released it and drove his thumb into Dante’s bandaged forearm. The rope burn opened. Dante’s grip failed.
Marcus reached beneath his coat.
Dante struck him across the jaw with the brass valve handle.
The sound was dull and intimate.
Marcus fell against the stove, caught himself, and pulled a compact pistol from a shoulder holster.
Dante kicked the soup pot.
It tipped from the burner. Cold soup poured across Marcus’s trousers and the floor. Marcus’s polished shoe slid. His first shot went into the ceiling.
Dante hit him again.
Marcus collapsed beside the stove, pistol still in hand.
Dante stepped on his wrist.
The bones shifted under the pressure. Marcus released the weapon.
Zoe appeared at the pantry entrance, clutching the phone and teddy bear. Her face had gone pale. She did not scream.
Dante kicked the pistol away.
“Go back.”
“The lady said—”
“Go back, Zoe.”
“She wants to know if he’s still shooting.”
Dante looked at the phone.
The emergency call remained connected. A dispatcher could hear the room, though Dante could not hear her without taking the device.
Marcus saw it too.
He moved suddenly, grabbing a fallen wooden spoon with his good hand and driving its broken edge toward Dante’s thigh.
Dante stepped back. Marcus rolled, reached the compact pistol near the cabinet, and missed it by inches.
Dante aimed at his head.
Marcus stopped.
His cheek was already swelling. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth. Soup soaked the knees of his black trousers. Without the rifle and overcoat arranged around him, he looked less like a traitor from Zoe’s drawing and more like a tired man who had made himself impossible to forgive.
“Do it,” Marcus said.
Zoe stood behind Dante.
The dispatcher’s faint voice came through the phone, asking questions no one answered.
Dante’s finger rested on the trigger.
Killing Marcus would be easy. Easier than explaining the mansion. Easier than opening rooms to police, surrendering weapons, exposing accounts, and facing every life represented inside the archive. Marcus’s body could be placed beside the rifle. The damage could be described as self-defense. Much of it would even be true.
Dante had survived by understanding that truth could be arranged.
Marcus looked at him with no fear now.
That irritated Dante.
He wanted fear. He wanted Marcus to understand the distance between betrayal and consequence. He wanted to return pain with interest and call the result order.
Behind him, Zoe’s teddy bear made a soft scraping sound against the pantry door as her hand trembled.
Dante saw the crayon drawing tucked into her pajamas. The red X showed above the fabric.
She had drawn Marcus so she would not forget.
If Dante fired, she would remember him too.
He lowered the pistol.
Marcus’s expression changed.
Not relief. Confusion.
Dante took the phone from Zoe.
“This is Dante Romano,” he said. “The shooter is disarmed in the kitchen. One woman needs medical care. The east gate is electronically controlled, and the security system is compromised.”
The dispatcher spoke rapidly. Dante listened, then gave the access code that would open the outer vehicle barrier.
Marcus stared at him.
“You just ended yourself,” he said.
Dante looked down at him. “No.”
Sirens remained too distant to hear, but their arrival had become inevitable.
Dante handed the phone back to Zoe. “Tell her your mother is breathing.”
Zoe pressed it to her ear and moved down the pantry steps.
Marcus tried to sit. Dante pushed him flat with one polished shoe against his chest.
“You think cooperation makes you different?” Marcus asked.
“No.”
“You think saving one child balances anything?”
“No.”
“You think prison is penance?”
“I think you’re talking because you don’t understand why you’re alive.”
Marcus gave a bloodied smile. “I understand. You want witnesses.”
Dante looked toward the pantry.
“That too.”
The smell of gasoline had strengthened. A thin line ran beneath the office hallway door toward the kitchen, shining under the amber light.
Marcus followed Dante’s gaze.
For the first time, real alarm crossed his face.
Dante pressed the pistol harder against his chest. “Where’s the ignition?”
May you like
Marcus said nothing.
Dante looked at the security tablet. The active camera feed had changed. It now showed the private office. A blinking red indicator appeared beside the archive wall.
