Chapter 5 - THE CONFESSION
I stared at the blood-stained watch in the palm of my hand.
Marcus had dragged Elise from that car. They had fought. She had ripped his watch from his wrist before he left her for dead in the snow.
My father-in-law, Senator Sterling, had ordered the hit on my five-year-old daughter. And my most trusted man had executed it.
But why? Why murder his own granddaughter?
My phone vibrated violently against my ribs. I pulled it out.
It was an unknown number, but the prefix was from Chicago General Hospital.
“Vale,” I answered coldly.
“Mr. Vale,” a panicked woman’s voice whispered. It was a nurse on Elise’s floor. “You pay me to watch the VIP ward. The Jane Doe… the woman from the crash. She just woke up.”
“Put extra men on her door. I’m on my way.”
“I can’t,” the nurse choked out, her voice trembling. “A man just cleared the floor. He flashed a federal badge. He went into her room.”
“What does he look like?”
“Tall. Custom coat. A scar on his jaw.”
Marcus. He found out she survived. He was finishing the job.
“If he touches her, I’ll burn the hospital down,” I snarled, hanging up.
I looked at Malcolm. “Marcus is at the hospital. Move.”
We tore through the midnight streets of Chicago, ignoring red lights. The grief I had carried for three years was gone, completely consumed by an icy, methodical need for execution.
We reached the hospital in ten minutes. We bypassed the front desk, taking the freight elevator to the fourth floor.
The hallway was eerily silent. The nurses’ station was empty.
I drew my weapon, a suppressed 9mm, and moved silently toward room 412. The door was slightly ajar.
I kicked it open, leveling my gun.
I expected to see Marcus standing over the bed with a pillow or a syringe.
Instead, the room smelled of cordite and copper.
Marcus was on the floor, clutching a massive gunshot wound to his stomach, gasping for air.
Sitting up in the hospital bed, her face bruised and pale, was Elise.
Her hands were shaking violently, but she was holding a heavy, black revolver pointed directly at Marcus’s head.
“Elise,” I said, stepping into the room.
She snapped her eyes to me. For a second, she looked terrified. Then, the revolver lowered slightly.
“Gideon,” she breathed, her voice raspy.
“You shot him,” I stated.
“He came to finish it,” she coughed, wincing in pain. “He thought I was still unconscious.”
I walked over to Marcus. He looked up at me, blood bubbling on his lips. “Boss… I had to… Sterling threatened my family…”
I didn’t want to hear his excuses. I kicked his weapon across the floor and looked back at Elise.
“I have the lockbox,” I told her. “I saw the toxicology report. Why did Sterling want Juniper dead? She was his granddaughter.”
Elise lowered the gun completely. A tear slid down her bruised cheek.
“He didn’t,” Elise whispered, the words carrying the weight of a thousand sins.
I frowned, stepping closer to the bed. “What?”
Elise looked me dead in the eye, the guilt finally breaking her apart.
“They didn’t want Juniper, Gideon. Sterling ordered Marcus to poison your drink. He wanted you dead so he could seize the Vale organization through your wife.”
Elise swallowed hard, a sob catching in her throat.
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“But you didn’t drink the juice that night, Gideon. You left it on the counter. Juniper woke up thirsty. She drank it.”
The world went violently silent.
