Chapter 8 - Barrel of a Gun
Harrison Vance looked remarkably calm for a man caught trespassing in an illegal subterranean torture cell.
He lowered the barrel of the revolver just a fraction, though his finger remained firmly curled around the trigger guard. His silver-rimmed glasses caught the dim beam of my flashlight, reflecting two cold, unblinking points of light.
"I always admired your intellect, Ethan," Harrison said, his voice smooth and conversational, as if we were discussing quarterly earnings over golf. "You always found the hidden backdoors in our systems. But you were always entirely too curious for your own good."
"Drop the gun, Harrison," I said, keeping my voice low and controlled, scanning the small room for an escape route or an improvised weapon. "You're an attorney, not a hitman. Armed kidnapping and illegal confinement carry life sentences without parole."
Harrison chuckled softly, shaking his head. "My dear boy, who said anything about kidnapping? Legally speaking, this property belongs to a defunct subsidiary registered in the British Virgin Islands. If you happen to suffer a tragic accidental fall down an abandoned basement staircase while investigating an old real estate asset... well, accidents happen on Wall Street every day."
"Victor sent you to clean up his mess," I stated, my eyes locked on his right hand.
"Victor is a visionary, but he lacks finesse," Harrison replied, taking a deliberate step into the room, narrowing the distance between us. "He let sentimentality cloud his judgment fifteen years ago. When Margaret threatened to expose the firm’s shadow accounts and take half the empire in the divorce settlement, Victor wanted her executed. I convinced him that total psychological annihilation was cleaner. We locked her away here, drugged her, broke her spirit, and eventually dumped her when she became too fragile to manage."
The sheer depravity of his confession sent a surge of boiling rage through my veins, threatening to override my logic.
"You ruined her life. You ruined my family," I whispered, taking a slow step forward.
"And you are about to join them in oblivion, Ethan," Harrison said, raising the revolver squarely toward my chest. "Any last words before you become a cautionary tale about corporate overwork?"
"Just one," I said.
Before Harrison could pull the trigger, I lunged sideways, sweeping my heavy steel flashlight across the damp concrete floor directly at his ankles.
Harrison stumbled forward with a sharp curse, his foot catching on the raised threshold of the steel door. The revolver discharged with a deafening roar, the bullet splintering the wooden nightstand and shattering the framed photograph of my mother.
Before he could regain his balance, I drove my right shoulder straight into his chest, sending both of us crashing hard onto the dusty floor.
The heavy chrome revolver slipped from his grip, sliding across the stone tiles into the dark hallway.
Harrison thrashed beneath me, clawing at my face with frantic desperation, but years of disciplined martial arts training and pure, unadulterated hatred gave me the upper hand. I pinned his arms to the ground, pressing my forearm hard against his throat until his struggles grew weak and his eyes rolled back in submission.
I stood up, breathing heavily, wiping sweat and dust from my forehead.
I walked over, picked up the dropped revolver, and checked the cylinder. Fully loaded.
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Harrison coughed violently, clutching his neck as he glared up at me from the floor. "You... you can't touch me. The authorities will never believe you... Victor will—"
"Victor doesn't know you're here, Harrison," I interrupted, my voice icy. "And by the time he realizes you're missing, you won't be his lawyer anymore. You'll be his co-defendant."
