Chapter 13 - The Mastermind's Estate
The rain had stopped by dawn, leaving the winding estate roads slick with wet leaves and morning mist. My black sedan tore through the wrought-iron gates of Marcus Thorne’s private compound on the northern cliffs, smashing right through the automated security arm without slowing down. Thorne was the majority shareholder of the investment firm that had funneled Liliana's inheritance into offshore accounts—the invisible hand that had orchestrated both the mother's disappearance and the child's subsequent neglect.
I kicked open the heavy oak doors of his study, the sound echoing through the vaulted library. Thorne was standing by his mahogany desk, a glass of scotch trembling in his hand, a satellite phone pressed to his ear. When he saw my face framed in the doorway, framed by the black suit jacket and the dark neck tattoos, the phone slipped from his fingers and shattered against the Persian rug.
"You..." Thorne stammered, backing away until his knees hit the edge of the desk. "The marshals... they were supposed to take care of you at the warehouse."
"The marshals are busy arresting your lawyers," I said, stepping forward until the distance between us vanished. I didn't draw a weapon; my bare hands were more than enough. I grabbed him by the lapels of his designer cashmere sweater and hoisted him off his feet, slamming him against the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Leather-bound volumes rained down around us in a chaotic avalanche.
"You tried to starve a six-year-old child," I snarled, my voice vibrating with a cold, terrifying fury that brooked no argument. "You tried to bury her mother, and you tried to bury the truth."
"I'll sign over everything!" Thorne gasped, clawing at my wrists, his face turning a deep, mottled purple. "Every cent of the estate! The accounts, the properties, the shares—it's all hers! Just don't kill me!"
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I dropped him onto the floor like a broken doll. He scrambled backward, coughing and gasping for air as I pulled a pre-drafted confession and asset transfer document from my breast pocket, tossing it onto the desk alongside a silver fountain pen.
"Sign every line," I said, my voice dropping back to a lethal, controlled register. "And when the federal agents walk through that door in five minutes, you will confess to every crime on the record. If you leave out a single detail, I will come back."
