Chapter 9 - Into the Lion’s Den
"Ethan, behind you!" Sarah yelled, scrambling across the floor.
Julian, blinded in one eye and dripping blood across his expensive coat, had drawn a concealed revolver with his left hand. He aimed it directly at Ethan’s chest.
"You little bastard—"
Sarah threw herself forward, tackling Julian at the knees. The gun discharged, the bullet splintering the hardwood floor inches from Ethan’s foot.
Ethan didn't freeze. He brought the bat down hard on Julian’s gun arm.
A sickening snap echoed through the foyer as Julian’s forearm fractured under the impact. The revolver dropped into the mess. Julian collapsed onto his back, groaning in agony, completely immobilized by pain and blood loss.
Sarah pinned him instantly, pressing her knee firmly into the center of his chest, retrieving her 9mm from beneath the sideboard and leveling it between his uninjured eye.
"Don't move," Sarah whispered, her voice dead, steady, absolute.
Julian lay there, panting, staring up into the barrel of the gun. The sophisticated aura was entirely shattered; he was nothing more than a bleeding, broken predator cornered in a trap of his own making.
"Kill me," Julian choked out, spitting blood onto his lapel. "Kill me and his associates... will come for you anyway. You can’t stop... the syndicate."
"I don't need to kill you, Julian," Sarah said calmly, reaching into her pocket with her free hand and pulling out her cell phone.
She didn't dial 911.
She tapped the screen, opening an active call that had been running for the last fifteen minutes.
"Agent Miller," Sarah spoke clearly into the speakerphone. "Did you record the confession regarding the offshore ledgers and the Mexican homicide?"
A steady voice responded through the phone’s speaker: *"Loud and clear, Sarah. Tactical units are thirty seconds out. Hold your perimeter."*
Julian’s single remaining eye widened in utter, paralyzing disbelief. "What... what did you do?"
"I was a federal forensic auditor for five years before I met Mark, you pathetic parasite," Sarah whispered, leaning down close to his ear. "I knew who you were the second you said your name on the phone tonight. You thought you were hunting my son? I set this call up with the Department of Justice the minute I pulled that thumb drive out of the cake."
May you like
Sirens began to wail in the distance—dozens of them, screaming down the suburban avenue, cutting through the silence of the night with flashing red and blue light.
***
