Chapter 9 - THE PRICE OF SIN
Voss fought with the feral, frantic energy of a man who knew the gallows were waiting for him.
He smashed his heavy platinum watch into my bleeding side, driving his elbow into my cracked ribs. Pain exploded across my vision, dark spots swimming in my eyes. I lost my grip on my sidearm; it sent it skidding across the hardwood floor, sliding out of reach beneath the massive mahogany desk.
Voss scrambled backward, his fingers reaching into his coat pocket, pulling out a small, folding tactical knife. He flicked the blade open with a vicious snap.
"I built an empire, Ethan!" Voss spat, his hair wildly disheveled, blood dripping from a cut on his forehead. "I'm not dying in your fucking library!"
He lunged forward, driving the blade straight toward my throat.
I caught his wrist with both hands, the cold steel of the blade stopping less than two inches from my jugular vein. The pressure was intense, his full body weight pressing down against my compromised ribs. My lungs burned for oxygen. My muscles quivered under the strain.
Through the double doors of the study, I could hear the distant, faint sound of heavy boots.
It wasn't more hitmen.
It was the heavy, rhythmic thud of tactical footwear, accompanied by the distinct, booming sound of tactical commands being shouted in the courtyard below.
"POLICE! STATE TROOPERS! DROP YOUR WEAPONS!"
Mason had done his job. When my flight failed to report in, when the signal jammers went live over River Oaks, Mason hadn't waited for orders. He had mobilized my private security force and brought the state police with him.
Voss heard the sirens echoing through the broken windows. He knew it was over.
His eyes flashed with a sudden, suicidal spite. "If I'm going down, Whitaker... I'm taking your whole legacy with me."
He put all his weight into the knife, pressing the sharp tip through the skin of my neck. A single drop of blood trickled down my collar.
I looked into the eyes of the man who had ordered the murder of my wife, who had terrified my children, who had destroyed my life.
I stopped trying to push the knife away.
Instead, I used my left hand to trap his wrist against my chest, locking him in place. With my right hand, I reached down to my boot, slipping my fingers around the handle of a small, double-edged backup dagger I had worn every single day since I was twenty-two years old.
"You took my wife," I whispered, my voice cold, calm, and utterly absolute. "You don't get my daughters."
I drove the dagger upward, beneath his ribcage, with the full, unfiltered weight of two years of unexpressed grief, rage, and love.
Voss’s eyes dilated to absolute black. The air rushed out of his lungs in a terrible, shuddering sigh. The tactical knife slipped from his fingers, clattering uselessly to the Persian rug.
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He collapsed forward onto my shoulder, his heavy body going completely limp.
I pushed him off me, rolling him onto his back. I sat there on the floor of my ruined study, clutching my bleeding side, breathing heavy, ragged gasps as the red-and-blue lights of fifty law enforcement vehicles began to illuminate the painted ceiling of my home.
