Chapter 5 - The Snake in the House
At two in the morning, the rain eased into a thick, sulfurous fog that blanketed the city.
I bypassed my main security detail, taking a unmarked black sedan from the lower garage. Clara sat in the passenger seat, a small leather bag containing her father’s old pocket watch resting in her lap.
We drove in silence toward the South Side.
St. Jude’s Parish was a crumbling gothic stone structure tucked between abandoned industrial warehouses. Its stained-glass windows were dark, its courtyard overgrown with tangled weeds and dormant rosebushes that clawed at the night sky like skeletal fingers.
I parked the car in a covered alley two blocks away. We stepped out into the damp chill, moving quietly through the shadows until we reached the church’s rear garden.
“Over here,” Clara whispered, pointing toward a stone statue of St. Jude nestled among the thickest cluster of rosebushes.
The stone base was weathered and covered in moss. I pulled a tactical flashlight from my coat and handed a small trenching spade to Clara while I used a heavy crowbar to pry at the mortar surrounding the pedestal.
The old stone groaned under the pressure, cracking open to reveal a small, lead-lined metallic box buried deep within the hollow base.
“It’s here,” Clara gasped, dropping to her knees in the wet dirt.
I pulled the box out, dusting off decades of soil. Before I could break the lock, the sharp, distinct sound of a gun cocking echoed through the quiet garden.
“I’ll take that, Boss.”
The rasping voice cut through the fog like a rusty blade.
I turned slowly, placing myself squarely in front of Clara.
Marcus stood at the archway of the garden, holding a suppressed pistol aimed directly at my chest. Behind him stood four of my own senior guards—men I had paid millions over the years to protect my life.
“Marcus,” I said, my voice dangerously calm. “You followed us.”
“Of course I followed you,” Marcus sneered, stepping into the dim light of the flashlight. “Eleanor was a smart woman, but she talked too much in her final days. I knew if she told you about the girl, you’d come looking for Arthur’s little secret.”
Clara stepped up beside me, her eyes burning with hatred. “You framed my father! You murdered him!”
Marcus chuckled, a dry, horrific sound. “Your father was soft, little girl. He wanted Arthur Hale to turn the syndicate into a legitimate shipping company. He wanted to shut down the Vane pipeline. I couldn't let him ruin a hundred-million-dollar operation. So I planted the wiretaps, made it look like Arthur was selling out to Julian Vane, and let old man Hale do the dirty work for me.”
My blood boiled, a primal, lethal rage surging through my veins. “My father trusted you, Marcus. I trusted you.”
“And that was your mistake, Bennett,” Marcus spat, his grip tightening on the pistol. “Your father was ruthless, but you? You got weak. You spent millions trying to save a dying woman while Julian Vane offered me fifty percent of the city if I delivered the Hale empire on a silver platter. With Eleanor dead and you buried in this pathetic garden, I take over the Hale syndicate by morning.”
“You won't make it to morning,” I growled.
“Who’s going to stop me?” Marcus taunted, raising the gun. “Your maid?”
Before Marcus could pull the trigger, a sudden burst of automatic gunfire shattered the silence of the night.
Two of Marcus’s men dropped instantly, their bodies collapsing into the rosebushes.
Out of the surrounding shadows emerged five men dressed in heavy tactical gear, led by Leo—my mother’s private bodyguard, the man I had assigned to watch the estate's perimeter.
“Boss! Get down!” Leo roared, opening fire on the remaining traitors.
Chaos erupted in the churchyard.
I grabbed Clara by the waist, tackling her behind the heavy stone pedestal as bullets whizzed overhead, chipping away bits of granite and stone.
Marcus cursed loudly, firing wildly into the fog as he retreated toward the church’s side entrance.
“Stay here!” I ordered Clara, pulling my custom gun from my shoulder holster.
“Bennett, no!” she cried out, grabbing my sleeve.
May you like
I looked down at her, grabbing her face in my hands, kissing her forehead with a fierce, desperate intensity. “He doesn't leave this garden alive. Wait for Leo.”
I broke cover, sprinting through the smoke and gunfire toward the dark archway where Marcus had fled.
