Chapter 8 - The Cornered Rat
Ethan’s revolver flew from his hand, spinning through the mud as a bullet from Lorenzo’s sidearm tore through his wrist with surgical precision.
Ethan shrieked, collapsing into the mud, clutching his shattered hand to his chest, rolling in the drenched soil of the rose garden he had once promised to marry me in.
“Drop the weapon, Prescott,” Lorenzo said, not even blinking as the smoke drifted from the barrel of his gun. “Or the next one takes off your kneecap.”
Moretti’s men swarmed the courtyard, disarming the two cartel diggers and pinning Ethan facedown in the mud. Handcuffs clicked sharply into place.
Lorenzo walked forward, stopping right beside Ethan’s head. He reached down with the toe of his leather boot and kicked the shattered remnants of the marble fountain aside.
Beneath the broken stone, embedded deep within a waterproof lead vault, sat an old brass lockbox adorned with Evelyn Hayes’s initials.
Lorenzo reached down, pulled the box from the mud, and wiped the grime from the lid. He turned to me, offering the rose-shaped brass key he had taken from my purse earlier that evening.
My hands shook slightly, but I kept my breathing even. I took the key, knelt in the mud beside the man who had tried to destroy me, and slid the key into the antique lock.
It turned with a smooth, heavy click.
Inside lay the original handwritten trust of Evelyn Hayes, the physical bearer bonds representing the controlling voting shares of the harbor district, and a thick audio cassette tape labeled: *PRESCOTT INVESTMENTS – EMBEZZLEMENT EVIDENCE 2018-2023.*
My grandmother had known every single move Ethan had made from the day he first walked into our lives. She had kept the evidence locked beneath the earth, waiting for the day I was strong enough to unearth it.
Ethan looked up from the mud, his face smeared with black dirt and blood, sobbing hysterically. “Scarlet... please. Don't hand those to him. If Moretti gets those bonds, he’ll destroy my family’s name. My father’s legacy... it will all be gone.”
I stood up, holding the ledger against my chest.
I looked down at Ethan Prescott. For three years, I had believed this man held my future in the palm of his hand. I had worried about his temper, begged for his approval, and cried myself to sleep wondering why I wasn't enough to make him faithful.
Now, looking down at him writhing in the dirt, he didn't look like an emperor. He didn't even look like a man. He was just a pathetic, greedy coward who had traded his soul for numbers on a screen and lost both.
“Your father destroyed his own legacy, Ethan,” I said softly. “You just finished the job.”
Lorenzo looked down at Marco. “Call the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Tell Special Agent Vance that the Prescott money-laundering files are ready for collection at the Hudson county line. And inform Ethan’s friends in Miami that if another one of their men steps foot in New York harbor, I will deliver their heads to their boss in a refrigerated shipping container.”
Marco gave a sharp nod. “Understood, Boss.”
As Moretti’s men dragged Ethan away, screaming curses and weeping into the rain, Lorenzo stepped up beside me. He wrapped his heavy, dry wool coat around my shivering shoulders, shielding me from the driving wind.
“It’s over, Scarlet,” he murmured, his voice softer than I had ever heard it.
I leaned my head against his chest, the adrenaline draining from my limbs, listening to the calm, steady rhythm of his heart beneath his shirt. For the first time in months, the crushing weight in my chest was gone. The air felt clean. The rain felt like a baptism, washing away every lie, every betrayal, and every trace of Ethan Prescott from my soul.
“Take me home, Lorenzo,” I whispered.
May you like
He wrapped his arm firmly around my waist, pulling me close against his side. “Let’s go home, sweetheart.”
---
