Chapter 8 - The Falling Shadow
The rain had turned into a full-driven deluge by 1:00 AM. At a secluded industrial warehouse near the Chicago River, David Sterling was frantically throwing stacks of hundred-dollar bills and fake passports into a leather duffel bag on the hood of a luxury sedan.
His eyes were wide with panic, sweat dripping from his chin onto the concrete floor.
"Come on, come on!" David screamed at himself, trying to zip the heavy bag shut with trembling hands. "Just get to the airstrip... just get out of the state..."
The heavy metal warehouse doors behind him didn't burst open. Instead, they slid open slowly, revealing the glaring headlights of three heavy black SUVs driving directly into the building.
The vehicles formed a semi-circle around David’s sedan, their bright LED beams blinding him.
David dropped the duffel bag, falling to his knees and throwing his hands up in the air. "I surrender! Don't shoot! I surrender!"
The driver's door of the center SUV opened, and Vincent Kane stepped out into the bright light. He walked slowly toward David, his hands tucked inside his coat pockets. Behind him, Julian Vance stepped out, carrying a single piece of paper.
"Vincent! Please!" David sobbed, crawling forward on the cold concrete. "I was crazy! I wasn't thinking! It was the liquor, I swear! I'll give you everything! Take the rest of my accounts! Take my offshore money!"
Vincent stopped five feet away, looking down at David like he was an insect on the pavement.
"I didn't come for your money, David," Vincent said quietly. "You already gave me everything you had when you signed over the restaurant."
Julian stepped forward, unfolding the paper in his hands.
"David Sterling," Julian read in his calm, rhythmic legal tone. "At twelve-thirty AM, private security footage captured your vehicle entering this storage facility. In addition, financial records recovered from your personal laptop show direct wire transfers amounting to two hundred thousand dollars sent to a known mercenary group in Florida."
Julian looked up over his silver glasses. "Your uncle, Prosecutor Arthur Sterling, was informed of these transactions twenty minutes ago by federal authorities."
David blinked, his breath catching. "What...? My uncle knows?"
"Your uncle gave you up, David," Vincent said coldly. "The moment he realized you hired hitmen to target a mother and child, he signed an arrest warrant himself to save his own political career. He called you a rogue element."
David let out a broken, pathetic laugh, sinking back against his car tire. "He abandoned me... he used me..."
"You used yourself," Vincent corrected. "You thought power meant taking what you want from people who couldn't fight back. You thought a four-year-old girl drawing purple stars on a piece of paper was something you could laugh at."
Vincent reached into his breast pocket and pulled out the original folded work log—the small piece of paper Rory had handed him three weeks ago.
"This piece of paper ruined you, David," Vincent said, holding it up in the dim light. "Not because of the money written on it. But because it proved what kind of man you were."
Vincent dropped the paper back into his pocket. He looked over at Knox, who was standing beside the SUV door.
"Call Detective Miller," Vincent commanded. "Tell him David Sterling is waiting at the river warehouse with two hundred thousand dollars in illicit cash and a full confession written on his laptop."
David looked up, stunned. "You're... you're giving me to the police?"
Vincent turned his back, walking back toward his vehicle. "The police will give you twenty years for attempted kidnapping and corporate conspiracy, David. In prison, men who hurt mothers and children don't have Porsches. They don't have keys. And nobody laughs at their jokes."
May you like
Vincent stepped into the back seat of his SUV. "Leave him for Miller."
As the SUVs reversed out of the warehouse, the faint red and blue lights of approaching police cruisers began to reflect off the rain-slicked river outside.
