Chapter 3 - Fourteen Years of Blood and Ledger Lines
The red dot burned against Nolan’s chest like a brand. The maintenance worker dropped the black leather envelope to the concrete floor with a heavy, hollow slap. It skidded across the dust and stopped against Gabriel’s polished leather shoe.
Gabriel didn’t look down at the papers. His eyes remained locked on Evan.
“Fourteen years, Evan,” Gabriel said, his voice entirely steady, carrying the chilling weight of a man staring into an abyss he had built with his own hands. “I pulled you out of the Cook County holding cells when you were twenty-two. I gave you a desk, a title, a salary that could buy half of Lincoln Park, and my complete, unquestioned loyalty. Why?”
Evan lowered the pistol just a fraction, though the barrel remained pointed firmly at Gabriel’s midsection. The friendly, easygoing COO was gone, replaced by a cold, calculating stranger whose eyes mirrored the damp, dark stone of the cellar.
“Loyalty is a luxury for men who don’t have bills to pay, Gabriel,” Evan said, his tone conversational, almost clinical. “You think building a ‘legitimate empire’ wipes away the past? You think cleaning up the books makes the people who funded us in 2012 just disappear? They don’t want a reformed businessman running the ports, Gabe. They want a partner. And you’ve gotten too soft. Too honest.”
“So you sold the restructuring plans to the Syndicate,” Gabriel stated, not as a question, but as an undeniable mathematical equation.
“I didn’t sell them. I authored them,” Evan corrected with a faint, cynical smirk. “Every single clause in that restructuring document designed to decentralize your power? That was my blueprint. Once the board sees those eighteen pages, they’ll vote you out under the ‘moral hazard’ clause for your past syndicate ties. And who do you think steps into the CEO chair by unanimous proxy?”
Gabriel slowly bent down, picked up the black leather envelope, and tucked it inside his overcoat.
“You,” Gabriel murmured.
“Me,” Evan confirmed, his grip tightening on the pistol. “It’s clean, Gabriel. No blood on the floor. Just a tragic corporate coup orchestrated by your own board due to ‘regulatory pressures.’ You retire to a nice estate in Switzerland, and I keep the freight empire running. Everyone wins.”
“Except Nolan,” Gabriel said, glancing at the trembling maintenance worker.
Evan didn’t even blink. He shifted the barrel slightly.
“Nolan knew the risks of moonlight consulting.”
Bang.
The silenced shot was little more than a heavy thud in the confined space. Nolan’s eyes widened in shock as a bloom of crimson blossomed across his chest. He collapsed backward against the iron boiler, sliding down into the dust without a sound.
Gabriel didn’t flinch. He didn’t blink. His mind raced at lightspeed, calculating angles, exits, and the heavy iron weight of the wrench resting on the workbench behind him.
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“Pity,” Gabriel said coldly. “He had such a distinct squeak.”
Evan raised the pistol back to eye level, his smile vanishing entirely. “And now it’s your turn, brother.”
