Chapter 7 - The Shadows Strike Back
While Saraphina was building her new life in Chicago, dark currents were still stirring in the decaying corners of the old power network.
In a high-security prison facility in upstate New York, Dominic Blackwood sat in a cold visitor’s cell, separated from the outside world by a thick panel of bulletproof glass. His jaw was gaunt, his skin pale beneath the harsh fluorescent lights, and his hand twitched rhythmically against the metal counter.
On the other side of the glass stood Winston Carmichael.
“You told me you had friends in the district court, Winston!” Dominic hissed, his voice raspy through the intercom system. “You promised me the appeal would hit a friendly judge in the Second Circuit!”
“I promised you nothing, Dominic,” Winston said coldly, holding his hands behind his back. “The federal government made an example of you. The media pressure is absolute. No judge in the country is going to sign off on an appeal for a man whose crimes were recorded in high-definition video and broadcast to forty million people online.”
Dominic leaned against the glass, his eyes wild with unhinged malice. “I don't care about the legal appeals anymore. I want her crushed, Winston. She took my title, my family’s money, my freedom... she is walking around Chicago like a heroine while I rot in this cage!”
“Be very careful what you say, Dominic,” Winston warned smoothly. “This line is recorded by federal monitors.”
“I don't give a damn about monitors!” Dominic snarled. “You still have access to the off-grid slush funds in Panama. The accounts my father set up thirty years ago that Marcus Vance couldn't trace. Use them. Hire someone. Put an end to her design projects. Burn her foundation to the ground!”
Winston looked at Dominic for a long, silent moment. In the hollow, desperate eyes of his former master, Winston saw the final, dangerous twitch of a dying beast.
“You really haven't learned anything, have you?” Winston said softly, shaking his head. “You still think money commands the universe.”
“Just do it!” Dominic screamed, banging his fist against the glass.
May you like
Winston picked up the receiver one last time. “The Panama accounts were seized six hours ago, Dominic. Victoria gave up the encryption keys to the Department of Justice in exchange for avoiding a ten-year prison sentence in a federal penitentiary. She’s living in a state-subsidized retirement home in Florida now. You have no money left. You have no allies left. And I am retiring.”
Winston set the phone back on the hook, turned his back on Dominic’s screaming rants, and walked out of the visitor’s room into the cold gray light of the afternoon, leaving Dominic alone in his cage forever.
