Chapter 248
Lance
If Wesley was returning to the Brotherhood, that meant he wasn't giving up. That meant he was preparing his own counterstrike. Pieces still moving across the board, even if they weren't moving according to my original plan.
I just had to hold the line here. Keep them occupied. Give my nephew time to finish what I'd started ten years ago, when they killed his father and made it look like an accident.
The minutes crawled by with excruciating slowness. I focused on my breathing, keeping it steady and controlled. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The same technique I'd used before every major acquisition, every hostile takeover, every moment when the pressure threatened to crack my composure.
After what felt like an eternity but was probably only twenty minutes, I called out: "I'd like some coffee."
A pause. Then Scar-brow's voice came through a speaker I hadn't noticed, tinny and distorted: "You'll get coffee when the chief gets here."
"I'd like it now," I said, my tone pleasant but firm. "Black. No sugar."
Another pause, longer this time. I could almost hear the internal debate happening on the other side of that mirror. Finally: "Fine. One coffee. Black."
The coffee, when it arrived, was predictably terrible—burnt and bitter and served in a styrofoam cup that was too hot to hold comfortably. But it was caffeine, and caffeine meant alertness, and alertness meant I could keep my mind sharp for whatever was coming.
I drank it in careful sips, letting the liquid heat spread through my chest. The bitter taste grounded me, pulled me back from the memories that threatened to surface. My mother's face. The way she'd looked the last time I'd seen her alive. The way she'd looked—
No. Not now. Focus on the present.
I glanced at my watch again. Eleven fifteen. Wesley should be at the Brotherhood's headquarters by now, rallying the troops. Vincent would have Serena safely tucked away in the Hudson Valley estate, far from the blast radius of what was about to happen. Everything was in place.
I allowed myself a small, grim smile. Today was the day it all ended. One way or another.
The coffee was gone by eleven thirty. I asked for another. Then a third. Each cup was as terrible as the last, but I needed the ritual of it—the act of lifting the cup to my lips, swallowing, setting it down. Something to do with my hands. Something to focus on besides the ticking clock and the weight of what was coming.
It was nearly twelve when I finally heard it: footsteps in the corridor. Not the heavy, careless tread of the uniformed officers, but something else. The sharp, authoritative click of expensive leather shoes against linoleum. Multiple sets of them, approaching with the measured confidence of people who were used to commanding rooms.
I straightened in my chair, rolling my shoulders back. Showtime.
The door swung open with more force than necessary, slamming against the interior wall with a bang that echoed through the small space. Chief Calloway Brennan entered first, and I had to suppress a flicker of satisfaction at how perfectly he matched my memory. A little heavier around the middle, perhaps. A little grayer at the temples. But the same sharp, calculating eyes. The same thin-lipped smile that never quite reached them.
He carried a thick manila folder under one arm, the kind that promised hours of tedious documentation and carefully assembled "evidence." Behind him came the others, filing in like actors taking their marks on a stage.
Thomas entered second, moving with that careful, measured gait he'd adopted since his supposed illness. He wore a charcoal suit that hung slightly loose on his frame—another touch of the invalid performance—and his face was arranged in an expression of practiced regret. The concerned uncle, forced to watch his beloved nephew destroy himself.
Arthur came next, and the genuine pain in his grandfather's eyes was almost enough to make me feel guilty. Almost. He looked older than I'd ever seen him, the lines around his mouth deeper, his shoulders slightly hunched. He'd dressed with his usual fastidious care—three-piece suit, gold watch chain, perfectly knotted tie—but there was something defeated in his bearing that I'd never witnessed before.
And finally, Eleanor. My stepmother moved with her characteristic grace, her expression a careful mask of neutrality. But I caught the flicker in her eyes when they met mine—worry, fear, and something else I couldn't quite name. A warning, perhaps.