Chapter 7 - The Cornered Viper
Dawn broke over the cliffs, painting the stormy sky in bruised shades of purple and slate. In the lower levels of the mansion, beneath the wine cellars where sound rarely escaped, Lucas stood guard outside an iron door.
Inside, Celeste Vance sat on a metal stool. Her silk robe was torn, her makeup smeared across her tear-stained cheeks. Yet when the heavy latch lifted and Wesley walked in, an ugly sneer curled her lips.
"You think you’ve won, Wesley?" she rasped, her voice hoarse from hours of screaming. "My father has friends in the state legislature. The harbor commissioner is on our payroll. If I disappear, federal marshals will dismantle your docks piece by piece!"
Wesley did not answer. He pulled up an opposite chair, sat down, and placed a portable tablet on the table between them. He tapped the screen to connect a video feed.
On the screen was Warehouse 4 at the docks. Sitting in a chair identical to Celeste’s was Magistrate Vance, his hands bound, flanked by two of Wesley’s captains. Beside him sat three heavy ledgers, their pages fluttered by the cold sea wind.
"Your father has already signed a full confession, Celeste," Wesley said, his voice flat and clinical. "He admitted to conspiracy, illegal weapons trafficking through the southern berths, and thirty counts of corporate fraud. He surrendered the Moretti communication codes twenty minutes ago in exchange for his life."
Celeste’s eyes widened in horror. "He... he wouldn't. He couldn't!"
"A man who sells his own daughter into a syndicate bloodbath will sell anything to save his own skin," Wesley said mercilessly. "Your father chose federal prison over an unmarked grave in the bay. He made the smart choice."
Celeste lunged forward, her fingernails clawing at the metal table. "And me? What are you going to do to me, Cain? Shoot me? Drop me into the ocean like one of your dockworkers?"
Wesley leaned back, his eyes colder than the winter sea.
"Death is too quick for what you did to Norah," he said. "You wanted to make her disappear quietly, to make the world believe she was broken and discarded. So I am going to let the law have you. But not the clean, comfortable prisons your father’s political friends run."
Wesley stood up and tapped the table. "You will be prosecuted for attempted murder, high conspiracy, and interstate racketeering. With the evidence I am handing to the attorney general, you will spend the next forty years in the maximum-security penitentiary in the northern mountains. No silk robes. No servants. No one to hear your little voice when you cry out in the dark."
Celeste’s jaw trembled. For the first time, true, unadulterated dread broke through her arrogant facade. She began to weep, real tears of pathetic self-pity, falling to her knees on the cold concrete. "Wesley... please... I loved you! I did it for us! We could have owned this city together!"
Wesley did not look back as he walked toward the heavy door.
May you like
"You never loved anything but power, Celeste," he said, stepping out into the corridor. "And now you have none."
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