Chapter 14 - THE MAN WITH THE BLACK STONE
Samuel Cross closed the door behind him.
A silenced pistol rested in his hand.
Detective Ruiz aimed at his chest.
“Put it down.”
Samuel smiled.
“You are protecting the wrong people.”
“You are under arrest.”
“No.”
“I am correcting a mistake.”
He fired at the ceiling.
Ruiz pulled Claire and Sophie behind the bed.
Ethan pushed Victor’s mattress toward the wall.
Samuel crossed the room with no sign of panic.
Hospital alarms remained silent.
He had disabled the entire floor.
“You built Eleanor’s network.”
Claire said.
Samuel looked at her.
“I gave a frightened woman the courage to take what should have belonged to her.”
“You helped her murder people.”
“I helped her remove obstacles.”
Ethan stepped in front of his father.
“Why my family?”
Samuel’s eyes hardened.
“Because Victor stole it from mine.”
Victor raised his head.
“Gabriel Mercer.”
Samuel’s smile disappeared.
Ethan remembered the false name used at the clinic.
Daniel Mercer.
“Who are you?”
Samuel looked at Victor.
“Tell him.”
Victor’s voice shook.
“Gabriel’s father co-founded Hawthorne Industries with my father.”
“The partnership ended before the company went public.”
Samuel laughed softly.
“That is the version written by the winners.”
Claire held Sophie tighter.
“What really happened?”
“My father designed the process that made Hawthorne Steel successful.”
“Ethan’s grandfather forged documents and pushed him out.”
“My father died penniless.”
“I spent my life rebuilding what your family stole.”
Ethan looked at Victor.
“Is it true?”
Victor did not answer.
Samuel lifted the gun.
“The company was built on theft.”
“Eleanor understood that power never belongs to the innocent.”
“It belongs to whoever is willing to take it.”
Detective Ruiz moved slightly.
Samuel noticed.
He fired.
The bullet struck the metal bedrail near her hand.
“Next time, I will not miss.”
Claire saw movement through the window.
Nathan crawled along the darkened hallway.
His injured arm hung against his side.
Samuel could not see him.
Claire kept Samuel’s attention.
“Why kidnap me?”
“I did not.”
“Eleanor became emotional.”
“She feared you.”
“I advised her to discredit you and send you away.”
“She chose imprisonment.”
“Then you lost control of her.”
“I never had control.”
“I offered direction.”
Nathan reached the door.
Samuel turned at the faint sound.
Ethan rushed him.
The gun fired.
Victor cried out.
Nathan struck Samuel from behind with an oxygen tank.
Ruiz knocked the weapon away.
Ethan pinned Samuel against the floor.
Hospital security arrived as emergency power returned.
Claire checked Victor.
The bullet had struck his side.
Blood soaked through the sheet.
Doctors rushed in.
Samuel was handcuffed.
As officers led him away, he looked at Ethan.
“You think Eleanor was the disease.”
“She was only a symptom.”
The doctors pushed everyone from the room.
Ethan stood in the hallway covered in his father’s blood.
Claire reached for his hand.
Nathan leaned against the wall.
For once, the two brothers looked equally lost.
After twenty minutes, the surgeon emerged.
“Your father is alive.”
“The bullet missed his heart.”
Ethan exhaled.
Detective Ruiz approached with Samuel’s phone.
“We found a scheduled message.”
“It was set to be sent if he failed to check in tonight.”
“To whom?”
Ruiz showed them the screen.
The recipient was Eleanor Hawthorne.
The message contained the hospital’s security layout and three words.
May you like
Finish what remains.
At that exact moment, an alarm sounded from the detention center where Eleanor was being held.
