Chapter 7 - The Foreign Buyer
Ryan was alone. His eyes were bloodshot, his hands shaking so violently that the barrel of the revolver wobbled in the air. He had stripped off his tuxedo jacket; his white shirt was soaked in sweat.
"Ryan," I said, stepping slightly in front of Arthur, keeping my hands visible. "Put the gun down."
"Give me the drive, Mariana!" Ryan screamed, his voice cracking into hysterical rage. "Give it to me! If I don't give that drive to Sterling’s couriers by midnight, they're going to kill me! Do you understand?! They aren't just investors! Sterling's security team is run by former Russian intelligence! They loaned me ten million dollars through an offshore shell company to fund Vance Dynamics! When the company went bankrupt, they said they would skin me alive unless I gave them what they wanted!"
"What they wanted was our son, Ryan!" I yelled back, disgust and fury burning through my veins. "You sold your own flesh and blood to save your pathetic skin!"
"He wouldn't have died!" Ryan cried, tears streaming down his face as he gestured wildly with the gun. "Beatrice swore to me! She said they were only going to take thirty percent of his liver and some bone marrow! A child's liver regenerates, Mariana! Don't you read the science?! It regenerates in six months! We could have had our life back! We could have been rich!"
"You're disgusting," I whispered, every drop of affection I had ever felt for him turning to pure poison. "You're a monster."
"I am a survivor!" Ryan shrieked, cocking the hammer of the revolver. "Now give me the damn drive or I swear to God I will shoot you right where you stand! I'll tell the police your father broke in, tried to kill me, and you were caught in the crossfire! Give it to—"
Arthur moved with blinding, explosive violence.
He didn't fire his weapon. He closed the eight-foot gap in a fraction of a second, slapping the barrel of Ryan’s revolver upward just as the gun discharged with a deafening roar. The bullet tore into the ornate plaster ceiling, shattering a crystal pendant from the chandelier.
Before Ryan could pull the trigger a second time, Arthur’s right elbow smashed into Ryan’s jaw with the force of a battering ram.
Ryan’s head snapped back. His teeth cracked together with a sickening crunch, and he collapsed onto the mahogany desk, dropping the revolver to the floor.
Arthur kicked the gun away, grabbed Ryan by the back of his hair, and slammed his face down onto the glass desk, pinning him with a heavy knee across his spine.
"Arthur... please..." Ryan gurgled, blood pooling under his cheek. "I'm your son-in-law..."
"You're a parasite," Arthur snarled, his voice vibrating with absolute contempt. "And you just committed attempted murder on federal surveillance."
Arthur reached up to his tactical vest, pulling out a miniature body camera that had been recording every second of the confrontation in high-definition 4K audio and video.
"The FBI public corruption squad already has this feed, Ryan," Arthur said. "Special Agent Vance isn't coming to rescue you. Special Agent Ramirez from the LA Field Office is already en route to this house."
Ryan let out a pathetic, keening sob of despair. "Beatrice... Beatrice won't let you get away with this..."
"Beatrice is already finished," I said, leaning down until my face was inches from Ryan’s bloody ear. "Because you're going to call her right now. And you're going to tell her that you have the drive, you have Leo, and that she needs to meet you at the dock immediately."
Ryan looked up at me, his eyes wide with animal terror. "Why? Why would you go to the dock?"
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"Because," I said, sliding the heavy steel hard drive into my coat, "I'm not letting Marcus Sterling sail away into international waters to do this to another child. We are ending this tonight."
***
