Chapter 6 - THE TANGLED WEBInside the back of the speeding ambulance, Mark immediately set to work. He wrapped me in heavy thermal blankets, hooked up an oxygen mask to my face, and began checking my vital signs.
"You're in shock, Violet," Mark said gently, wiping a mixture of rain and blood from my forehead with a sterile gauze pad. "Just try to breathe. We're heading straight to the County General Hospital under police escort. You're safe now."
"Is he... is he following us?" I rasped under the oxygen mask.
Mark glanced out the back window. The rain was coming down in sheets, blurring the red tail lights of the city traffic behind us. "I don't see him. But the police are everywhere now. He won't make it far."
He was wrong.
Victor Parker wasn't just a violent drunk; he was a man backed into a corner, and a cornered rat knows every secret tunnel in the maze.
While Mark checked my pulse, my phone—which Mark had retrieved from my coat pocket back at the hospital—began to vibrate furiously inside my blanket.
I pulled it out with trembling fingers.
The caller ID showed an unknown number.
I swiped the screen to answer and put it on speakerphone.
"Violet..."
It wasn't Victor’s voice.
It was my mother’s. But she wasn't crying anymore. Her voice was cold, sharp, and stripped of all the trembling weakness she had displayed for the last decade.
"Mom?" I whispered, my heart dropping into my stomach. "Where are you? The police—"
"The police don't know anything, Violet," Linda interrupted, her tone sending a chill straight down my spine. "You think you were the only one playing a long game in that house?"
I froze. "What are you talking about?"
"You think Victor was the mastermind?" Linda let out a hollow, bitter laugh that sent shivers down my arms. "Victor was an idiot. A blunt instrument. A brute with a drinking problem and a big mouth. Who do you think managed the offshore accounts, Violet? Who do you think scheduled the freight shipments for the firearms? Who do you think wiped the security cameras every time he took a swing at you?"
The air left my lungs. The world around me seemed to tilt on its axis.
"You..." I stammered, staring at the phone in horror. "It was you?"
"Victor was my muscle and my shield," Linda spat coldly. "Every time he laid a hand on you, I let him, because it kept his anger focused on you instead of asking questions about where the real money was going. I let him play the big, scary monster so everyone would look at him while I built an empire in the shadows."
"You monstrous evil bitch," I screamed into the receiver. "You let him beat me for TEN YEARS!"
"And you just handed the FBI everything they need to tear down his operation," Linda continued smoothly, ignoring my anguish. "Which means Victor is useless to me now. He’s a loose end. And so are you."
"What have you done, Linda?" I demanded, tears of pure betrayal streaming down my face.
"I just tipped off Victor’s real business partners—the syndicate in Detroit," she whispered softly. "I told them that Victor and his little stepdaughter were currently talking to the FBI. They’re tracking your ambulance’s GPS right now, Violet. They won't let that laptop reach County General."
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The phone line went dead.
Before I could process her words, a massive, black armored pickup truck barreled out of an intersection without lights, slamming violently into the side of our speeding ambulance.
