Chapter 9 - THE RECKONINGI rushed into the damp cell and dropped to my knees beside my father. Gently, carefully, as if he were made of fragile spun glass, I scooped my arms under his skeletal frame and lifted him off the dirty mattress.
"I've got you, Dad," I choked out, tears finally breaking free and spilling down my cheeks. "I've got you. We're going home."
Ricardo buried his face in my shoulder, his frail arms wrapping weakly around my neck. For the first time in five years, the crushing weight in my chest lifted, replaced by the profound, overwhelming warmth of being a son holding his father.
"I knew you'd come, Julian," he whispered, his voice trembling with a lifetime of exhaustion and love. "I knew... the truth always finds a way to surface."
We walked out of the cell together.
Patricia was still crumpled on the floor in the hallway, sobbing uncontrollably into her hands, utterly broken by the sudden, total destruction of her empire.
I didn't bother touching her. I didn't need to.
I pulled out my cell phone—the burner phone Mateo had slipped into my duffel bag—and dialed three digits that every criminal in the city feared.
"Emergency services? Yes. I'm reporting a hostage rescue and an unlawful confinement at the sub-basement of Mendoza Enterprises," I said into the receiver, my voice cold, steady, and loud enough to echo off the concrete walls. "Send the federal marshals, an ambulance, and the financial crimes division. The corporate embezzlement files are unlocked and waiting on the server."
May you like
I hung up the phone.
As the distant, wailing sirens of police cruisers began to echo through the midnight streets of the Del Valle district above us, I carried my father out of the dark, suffocating abyss and back up toward the blinding light of the world above.
