Chapter 17 - The Circle Tightens
Roman Carter did not hide behind the shadows of his younger brother.
He walked into the auditorium surrounded by four men wearing tactical wool overcoats, their right hands buried inside their pockets where the bulges of submachine guns were unmistakable.
Roman was fifty, silver-haired, impeccably tailored beneath an ankle-length cashmere coat that remained immaculate despite the howling snow behind him.
He smiled, but the expression was entirely dead, the cold calculation of an actuary balancing a ledger where human lives were merely rounding errors.
"Ethan," Roman remarked, nodding curtly toward his brother without stopping his leisurely stroll down the center aisle. "I expected you to be in Miami by now. The jet was fueled at Midway three hours ago."
"I told you to stay out of this district, Roman," Ethan replied, not raising his weapon, his voice dropping into that chilling, flat register he had inherited from their father.
"This district belongs to the Carter estate," Roman said, turning his slate-gray eyes directly onto me. "And Miss Montgomery has been squatting on our balance sheet for entirely too long."
"The land isn't yours, Roman," I said, stepping out from behind the drafting table, holding the yellowed deed from the footlocker between my fingers. "My father owned the land through the Bradley Trust. It’s registered in Springfield. It was filed thirty years ago."
Roman didn't flinch.
He produced a gold Cartier lighter from his pocket, flicked the flame to life, and held it up to illuminate the blackened walls around us.
"Paper burns, Claire," Roman said smoothly. "So do old theaters. And so do recalcitrant young women who overestimate their leverage in a city run by men with concrete mixers."
He signaled with two fingers.
His men pulled their suppressed weapons from their coats with mechanical efficiency.
"Give me the footlocker, Ethan," Roman commanded. "Step aside, let the girl sign the quitclaim transfer I brought with me, and we can all pretend Julian died of natural causes."
"No," Ethan said.
The word hung in the frozen air between them like an iron door slamming shut.
"No?" Roman’s eyebrow arched in mock amusement. "You’re going to throw away thirty-five million dollars in liquid offshore assets for a woman who spent the last three months divorcing you in the public press?"
"I'm not doing it for the woman," Ethan said, his hand slowly clearing the lapel of his jacket. "I'm doing it because our father was a monster, you are a parasite, and Julian Montgomery was the only man who ever walked into our house and told the truth about what we were."
A single shot echoed through the auditorium, deafening in the confined space.
May you like
It didn't come from Ethan.
It came from the high catwalks fifty feet above Roman’s head.
