Chapter 14 - The Mother's Betrayal
We descended the lower stairwell at a dead sprint. The smell of gunsmoke down here was thicker, mixed with the sickening copper reek of fresh blood.
At the end of the corridor, two of our Master-at-Arms guards lay against the concrete wall. One was clutching a shattered shoulder, conscious and groaning; the other was motionless, a dark halo spreading behind his head.
"Medic on the way!" Hayes yelled down the hall, tossing a trauma kit to the wounded guard before covering the open cell door.
The heavy steel door of Charlie-Four hung wide open. Inside, Patricia Vance sat huddled in the corner of the metal bunk, her hands pressed tightly over her ears, trembling violently. The fine silk blouse she had worn to the ballroom gala was stained with gray soot and sweat.
She wasn't wounded. But standing in the center of the cell was a third contractor, his back to us, raising a suppressed pistol toward her forehead.
"Weapon down!" I commanded, entering the threshold with my sights locked onto his skull.
The intruder spun on his heel to bring his weapon to bear on me, but Hayes was a quarter-second faster. Two rounds tore through the man’s center of mass, followed by a finishing headshot that dropped him instantly onto the linoleum floor.
Patricia shrieked, pressing herself flat against the cinderblock wall. "Don't shoot! Don't shoot! I didn't do anything! It was Derek! Derek arranged everything!"
I lowered my pistol slightly, stepping over the dead mercenary until I was standing inches from the woman who had birthed me, abandoned me, and traded my father’s life for a wire transfer.
"Shut up, Patricia," I said. My voice was deadly quiet, carrying more authority than a naval cannon.
She looked up at me, her face pale, mascara streaked across her sagging cheeks in grotesque black tears. "Evelyn... Evelyn, thank God. They were going to kill me! Derek sent them to kill me!"
"Derek sent them because you know where the account codes are," I said, cold disgust dripping from every syllable. "And because he knows you took three hundred thousand dollars to look the other way while they poisoned Dad."
Patricia froze. The theatrical terror in her eyes vanished, replaced by a momentary, naked panic. "That’s... that’s a lie. Your father was sick! The doctors said it was his lungs!"
"The doctors were paid off," Hayes snarled from the doorway, keeping his weapon trained on the corridor. "We have the toxicology reports, Patricia. And Arthur’s team just seized the terminal records from your private account in the Caymans. Three hundred thousand dollars cleared twenty-four hours before Richard Vance died."
Patricia swallowed hard, her mouth opening and closing like a suffocating fish. Then, her demeanor cracked. The facade of the elegant, high-society mother shattered completely, revealing the venomous parasite beneath.
"Richard was going to ruin us!" she hissed, her voice rising to a frantic, shrill shriek. "He found the shipping manifests! He was going to call the FBI! He would have had Derek sent to a federal penitentiary for twenty years! The Vance name would have been dragged through the mud! Our social standing, the country club, the foundation—everything we built would have been destroyed!"
"So you helped murder your husband?" I demanded, the sheer monstrousness of her admission hitting me like a physical blow.
"Derek said it would be painless!" she cried, entirely unrepentant, only desperate. "He said Richard would just slip into a coma! And the money was supposed to cover the family debts! You weren't here, Evelyn! You ran off to play soldier! We had bills! We had status to maintain!"
I stared at her. The memory of her standing on the front porch eighteen years ago, holding that black plastic garbage bag with my clothes, sneering as she told me I was nothing, flashed through my mind.
*She killed the only man who ever loved me for a line of credit and a seat at a country club luncheon.*
"Hayes," I said without looking back.
"Yes, Admiral?"
"Double-cuff her. Strip her of all personal effects. Transfer her to the federal brig in Quantico under maximum security suicide watch."
"No! Evelyn, wait!" Patricia screamed, reaching out with manicured claws to grab my dress blues. "Derek has Julian! Derek took your nephew! If he gets out of the country, you'll never see that boy again! He'll sell him or use him as a hostage!"
I slapped her grasping hand away with the back of my forearm, hard enough to leave a red welt.
May you like
"I will save Julian," I whispered into her face. "And when I return, I will personally attend your trial to make sure you spend every remaining second of your wretched life in a concrete box without windows."
***
