Chapter 9 - The Reckoning
The rain washed the soot from the bridge deck as Declan walked toward the broken detective.
Carter coughed up blood, his eyes wide with animal terror as the towering figure of Declan Hayes loomed over him. The sirens in the distance weren't city sirens; they were the private security frequencies of the Hayes syndicate. The bridge was locked down. No one was coming to save him.
"You're a monster, Hayes," Carter wheezed, his fingers clawing at the asphalt. "You're a murderer."
Declan stopped three feet away. He didn't draw his weapon. He simply looked down at Carter as if he were an insect that had crawled onto his shoe.
"I am a businessman who protects his family," Declan said coldly. "You, Carter, are an extortionist who hit women because you were too cowardly to face men."
Declan turned slightly, gesturing toward Nora, who stood tall in the rain, her emerald coat billowing slightly in the river wind. She did not hide behind Declan’s men. She walked forward until she stood right beside Declan, looking down at the man who had terrified her for six months.
"Do you want him dead, Nora?" Declan asked, his voice entirely devoid of emotion. "Say the word, and he goes over the railing into the water. It will be finished."
Carter looked up at Nora, his eyes pleading, the pathetic remains of a bully stripped of his badge and his gun. "Nora... please. I was just doing what I had to do. You know how the city works. Please."
Nora stared at him. She felt the heavy phantom bruises on her jaw, remembered the nights spent weeping in her small apartment, remembered the terror of wondering if her sister was going to die in a ditch.
Then, she looked at Declan. She looked at the empire standing behind him, and the absolute power he had placed entirely at her disposal.
"Dying in the river is too quick for you, Carter," Nora said, her voice clear, hard, and resonant above the sound of the rain. "You wanted to ruin lives with paper and badges. So that's how you'll rot."
She looked at Declan. "Give the grand jury the unredacted ledgers. Let every officer, every judge, and every criminal he ever extorted know what he did. Put him in general population at Stateville with his badge around his neck. Let him live with what he created."
A slow, vicious smile spread across Declan’s face. It was the proudest look he had ever given a human being.
"A far more agonizing sentence," Declan agreed softly. He looked at Luca. "Hand him over to the federal marshals waiting at the perimeter. Make sure his medical care is kept to the absolute bare minimum required to keep him conscious for trial."
Luca nodded, hauling Carter up by his collar and dragging him away into the flashing red lights of the lockdown convoy.
May you like
Declan wrapped his heavy wool coat around Nora’s shoulders, pulling her against his side. The rain fell softly around them, but Nora had never felt warmer in her life.
***
