Chapter 6 - The Unspoken Truth
Kozlov lay on the wet stone, gasping for breath, blood pooling beneath his shattered knee. He looked up at me, letting out a wet, rattling laugh.
"You think... you think I ordered the hit on Elena three years ago?" Kozlov choked out, his eyes wide with dark amusement. "You fool, Vance... I didn't care about your wife back then!"
Claire stepped closer, her hands tightening on her rifle, her breath hitching in her chest. "Speak!" she ordered.
"The hit on your wife wasn't ordered from the outside," Kozlov sneered, coughing up blood. "It was ordered by someone sitting right in your inner circle! Someone who wanted to break your spirit so they could take control of the Chicago docks!"
"Who?!" I demanded, pressing the rifle barrel harder into his skull.
Kozlov gestured weakly toward Julian, who was cowering near the wine racks. "Ask your accountant... he signed the wire transfer to the hit squad... three years ago... two hundred thousand dollars... paid from your own security slush fund!"
My head snapped toward Julian.
The CFO looked like he was about to vomit. "I... I had to, Vance! Your wife found out I was embezzling from the company! She had gathered the audit files! She was going to tell you the next morning! I couldn't let her destroy me!"
Claire gasped, a look of profound, agonizing shock washing over her face. For three years, she had believed her brother Marcus died in a chaotic mob hit executed by rival families. Now, the cold reality landed like a sledgehammer: her brother had been murdered simply to cover up a corporate embezzlement scheme.
"Marcus died for your greed..." Claire whispered, her voice shaking with an terrifying mixture of grief and fury.
She stepped toward Julian, pulling a combat knife from her tactical belt.
"Claire, wait!" I called out, reaching out a hand to stop her. "If you kill him now, we lose the evidence needed to clean the company and protect the girls!"
Claire stopped inches from Julian, the tip of her blade hovering right at his throat. Tears of anger burned in her eyes as she looked from the pathetic, trembling accountant to me.
"He killed my brother, Vance," she sobbed softly, her military composure finally cracking. "He took Marcus from me."
"And he will spend the rest of his miserable life in a maximum-security federal prison, suffering every single day," I swore to her, looking deep into her eyes. "I will make sure he never sees the light of day again. But I need you alive, Claire. My daughters need you."
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Claire closed her eyes, taking a deep, shuddering breath. Slowly, she lowered the knife.
"Bind them," she said, her voice growing cold and steady once more. "Both of them."
