Chapter 14 - The Final Ledger
Time seemed to dilate into agonizing slow motion. I saw the white-hot flash of the pistol barrel twitching in Marcus’s hand, saw the desperate, psychotic rage in his eyes as he pulled the trigger.
*Click.*
The firing pin struck empty air.
Marcus blinked in sheer confusion, staring down at the weapon in his hand as if it had suddenly transformed into a snake. He pulled the trigger again. *Click. Click.*
From the shadows behind a large marble pillar near the elevator bank, Miller stepped forward, holding the magazine he had quietly pick-pockets-lifted off Marcus during a split-second scuffle in the corridor thirty seconds earlier.
"Rule number one of white-collar extraction, Marcus," Miller said coldly, tossing the heavy metal magazine onto the polished marble floor at Marcus’s feet with a sharp clatter. "Never bring an unloaded gun to a federal audit."
Before Marcus could lunge forward in a blind, pathetic tackle, the glass doors behind him burst open and four federal marshals swarmed the observation deck like a tidal wave. They hit Marcus with brutal efficiency, tackling him hard onto the marble floor and pinning his face against the cold stone.
"Get off me! Do you know who I am? I am Marcus Sterling!" he screamed, muffled against the floor as the steel handcuffs clicked shut around his wrists for the second time in forty-eight hours.
"Yeah, we know," one of the marshals grunted, hauling him roughly to his feet. "You're inmate number 4912. Move it."
I stood watching as they dragged him past me toward the elevators. He didn't look arrogant anymore. He looked small, broken, and utterly defeated—a ghost of a man who had traded everything for greed and cruelty.
Elena rushed out of the stairwell seconds later, breathless and wide-eyed, throwing her arms around me once again. "Are you alright? Did he hurt you?"
"I'm untouched, Elena," I murmured, looking out through the massive glass windows at the sunlit city below. "It's over."
"Not quite yet," Elena said, pulling a breaking news tablet from her blazer pocket. "Alexander Thorne just caught wind of Marcus's arrest and the grand jury's unanimous indictment. He's attempting to board his private Gulfstream at the municipal airport right now to flee the country."
May you like
I looked down at the tablet screen, then back toward the elevators. "Then let's not keep Mr. Thorne waiting."
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