Chapter 8 - The Cornered Scion
Garrett’s plea hearing had left him with a five-year sentence, but before his transfer to the federal correctional facility in Otisville, he was granted a forty-eight-hour furlough under strict ankle-monitor surveillance to finalize his personal affairs and sign the surrender documents for his remaining assets.
He didn't use the time to pack. He used it to track me down.
It was seven o'clock on a Thursday evening. I had just left Marcus's office and was walking toward my brownstone in Brooklyn. The street was quiet, lined with brownstones glowing with warm, domestic light through parlor windows.
A figure stepped out from the shadows near my front gate.
"Claire."
I stopped instantly, my hand sliding into my coat pocket where my finger rested on the panic alarm connected to David's security team.
Garrett stepped under the streetlamp. He was thin—alarmingly so. His clothes hung loosely on his frame, his face was gaunt, and his eyes had the feverish, erratic shine of a man who had lost his mind. Around his right ankle, the bulky black plastic of a court-mandated GPS monitor was visible above his shoe.
"Garrett," I said calmly, maintaining a ten-foot distance. "You are violating your furlough conditions. You are within five hundred feet of my residence."
"I don't care," he rasped, taking a half-step forward. "I don't care about the monitor. I don't care about Otisville. Look at me, Claire! Look at what you've done to me!"
"You did this to yourself, Garrett. You signed the plea deal."
"Because your lawyer buried me!" he shouted, his voice cracking, drawing the attention of an elderly neighbor walking a dog across the street. "You gave them everything! You gave them the Delaware files! You gave them Chloe! Did you really have to go to Chloe?!"
"She gave us the receipts for the Porsche, Garrett," I said. "She was remarkably cooperative once she realized you didn't have a cent to your name."
Garrett laughed—a dry, bitter, rattling sound. He ran his hands through his unwashed hair. "Five years, Claire. Five years in a federal cage with embezzlers, drug runners, and garbage. My mother is living in an assisted living facility in Tampa paid for by your pathetic handout. My brother won't even answer my letters. I have nothing. Do you hear me? Nothing!"
"Then you finally know how you made me feel for five years," I said.
He stepped closer, his jaw clenching, the same feral rage returning to his eyes that I had seen right before the wine hit my face at L'Aura.
"I made you a Mercer!" he hissed, his fists balling at his sides. "You would be nothing without me! Just a dead trucker's daughter sitting on a pile of midwestern coal money! I gave you taste! I gave you elegance! And you repaid me by gutting my life like a fish!"
"My father was an honorable man," I said, my voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl. "He built a logistics empire with his bare hands. He employed thousands of people. He never stole a dime, he never lied on a ledger, and he never threw a drink in a woman's face. You aren't fit to speak his name."
Garrett lunged.
He didn't make it two feet.
A black SUV that had been idling fifty yards down the block accelerated violently, cutting across the lane and slamming on its brakes at the curb. The doors flew open. David and a second private security officer leapt out with terrifying speed.
David caught Garrett by the throat, driving him backward against the iron fence with enough force to knock the breath entirely out of his lungs. The second guard pinned Garrett’s arms behind his back, clicking heavy steel zip-ties around his wrists before Garrett even realized what had happened.
"Get off me!" Garrett choked out, struggling against the iron grip. "I have furlough! I have rights!"
"Your furlough was conditional on maintaining a thousand-foot perimeter from Mrs. Mercer's protected addresses," David said into Garrett’s ear, his voice icy and professional. "You breached the perimeter three minutes ago. The US Marshals Service was notified the second your monitor crossed Atlantic Avenue."
Sirens wailed in the distance, cutting through the crisp autumn night air.
Garrett stopped struggling. He slumped against the fence, his forehead pressed against the cold black iron, sobbing openly now.
"Claire..." he wept, turning his tear-streaked, bruised face toward me. "Please... don't send me there early. Please. Just tell them it was a mistake. Tell them I came to apologize. Just say the word. I loved you... Claire, I loved you!"
I looked at him—this man I had once thought was my partner, this man who had measured my worth exclusively by what he could extract from my bank accounts while treating my dignity as a disposable commodity.
"You never loved me, Garrett," I said softly, looking down into his ruined, pleading face. "You loved the money. And now, you don't even have that."
Two federal marshals' cruisers pulled up behind the SUV, their red and blue strobe lights painting the brownstones in violent flashes. Four armed marshals stepped out, their badges gleaming on their tactical vests.
"Garrett Mercer?" the lead marshal demanded.
"He's all yours," David said, stepping back and passing the restraint lead to the officer.
They hoisted Garrett up, reading him his revoked furlough rights as they marched him toward the back of the cruiser. He didn't scream anymore. He didn't threaten. He just hung his head, a completely hollow shell, his polished shoes dragging through the dead leaves on the Brooklyn pavement.
May you like
The car door slammed. The sirens fell silent, leaving only the steady flash of the strobe lights as the cruiser pulled away, carrying Garrett Mercer off to begin his five years of absolute silence.
***
