Chapter 7 - Debts Paid in Full
The rain had finally stopped over Mecklenburg County by two in the morning, leaving the asphalt of Interstate 85 gleaming like polished obsidian under the sodium-vapor highway lamps.
Thirty miles south of Charlotte, near the South Carolina border, Dominic Rainer’s black Lincoln Navigator was traveling at ninety-five miles per hour.
Inside the SUV, Dominic was shouting into a secondary burner phone, his collar torn open, his bow tie dangling around his neck.
“What do you mean the airstrip is compromised?!” Dominic roared into the receiver. “I pay ten thousand dollars a month to keep that hangar clear in Rock Hill! Tell the pilot to spool the engines! We take off in twenty minutes, or I’ll have his entire family thrown into—”
The phone went dead. A high-pitched tone sounded through the speaker.
*“The subscriber you have called is no longer in service.”*
Dominic slammed the phone against the dashboard, shattering the plastic casing. “Drive faster!” he screamed at his chauffeur. “Hit the gas, you idiot!”
“Boss…” the driver stammered, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror. “Look back there.”
Dominic turned around in his leather seat.
Emerging from the highway fog behind them were three massive, blacked-out Peterbilt semi-trucks—the heavy logistics haulers of Whitmore Freight. They were running three abreast, completely blocking all lanes of the interstate, their chrome grilles gleaming like the teeth of predatory beasts.
Above them, the deep, rhythmic *thwack-thwack-thwack* of helicopter rotors ripped through the night air. A high-intensity spotlight snapped on from the darkness above, pinning the Lincoln Navigator in a blinding cone of white light.
“They’re boxing us in!” the driver panicked, slamming his foot on the brake.
“Don’t stop!” Dominic screamed. “Ram through them! Ram through them!”
It was too late.
From the shoulder of the highway ahead, a fourth Whitmore freight truck pulled across the three lanes, forming an impenetrable steel barricade across the asphalt. The Lincoln’s antilock brakes engaged with a violent, smoking shriek, the SUV spinning ninety degrees before slamming sideways into the highway guardrail with a deafening crash of metal and shattering safety glass.
The engine died with a hiss of escaping coolant.
Dominic kicked his crumpled door open, coughing in the cloud of white powder from the deployed airbags. He scrambled out onto the wet asphalt, his hand reaching for the nine-millimeter pistol wedged into his waistband.
Before he could draw the weapon, the heavy heel of a tactical boot slammed down onto his wrist.
Bone cracked with a sickening crunch.
Dominic screamed in agony, dropping the gun onto the wet highway.
Julian Vance stood over him, holding a tactical shotgun leveled at Dominic’s forehead, his expression as impassive as carved granite.
“Evening, Dominic,” Julian said mildly, rolling his unlit cigar to the other side of his mouth. “Nice night for a drive.”
Behind Julian, the door of a black armored Mercedes opened. Nathan Whitmore stepped out into the glare of the helicopter spotlight. He wore his heavy black overcoat over his tuxedo, his hands tucked casually into his pockets.
He walked over to where Dominic lay pinned against the asphalt, stopping three feet away.
“Nathan…” Dominic gasped, clutching his broken wrist against his ribs, blood dripping from a cut on his forehead. “Nathan, listen to me… we can make a deal. I have eight million dollars in bearer bonds in a Zurich vault. I’ll transfer the codes to you right now. Just let me reach the airstrip. I’ll leave North Carolina. You’ll never see my face again.”
Nathan looked down at him. The helicopter overhead beat the cold air into a whirlwind, whipping Nathan’s coat around his knees.
“You tried to starve my people, Dominic,” Nathan said, his voice cutting through the mechanical roar with absolute clarity. “You sent a courier into my private home. You used a weak, greedy woman to steal fifty-six thousand dollars from a cook who worked sixty hours a week while my mother died of fever.”
“It was just business!” Dominic cried, his voice cracking into a desperate shriek. “It was just a corporate takeover!”
“In your world, it was business,” Nathan replied calmly. “In my world, it was a violation of the only law that matters.”
Nathan leaned down, placing a heavy hand on Dominic’s shoulder.
“You don’t get to fly to Zurich, Dominic. You get to spend the next thirty years in a federal supermax facility in Florence, Colorado, sharing a concrete cell with men who don't care about your family name or your offshore accounts.”
Nathan looked up at Julian. “Julian.”
“Sir?”
“Hand him over to the federal marshals waiting at the state line. Make sure they take his shoe laces and his belt.”
“Understood, Boss,” Julian said.
Nathan turned his back on Dominic Rainer and walked back toward his car. Behind him, Dominic began to scream curses, his voice rising in hysterical rage until Julian hauled him up by his collar and threw him against the hood of the wrecked Lincoln.
Nathan got into the back of the Mercedes. He tapped the partition.
May you like
“Take me home,” Nathan said to the driver.
***
