Chapter 16 - The Final Reckoning
Miller unclipped his harness, stepping onto the smoky living room rug with his service weapon drawn and locked on the matriarch.
"Drop it, Madam Sterling," Miller said, his voice cold and absolute. "The game is over."
The old woman slowly turned her head. She looked at Miller, then down at the glass vial in her hand, and finally at me, paralyzed and trapped in the chair across the room. A slow, bitter smile touched her lips.
"You think a prison cell can hold a century of blood, Detective?" she asked softly. "You’ve caught the branch, but the roots run deep beneath this entire city."
"Maybe so," Miller replied, stepping closer. "But those roots are about to be salted."
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He signaled to two agents behind him, who rushed forward and slapped heavy steel cuffs around the matriarch's wrists. She didn't resist. She let them pull her arms back, her posture remaining unnaturally rigid and proud even as they marched her past the shattered window and out through the front door.
As the medics rushed into the room with antidote drips to reverse the paralytic agent in our veins, I felt the heavy, freezing weight begin to lift from my limbs.
