Chapter 190: The Calm Before the Storm

Chapter 190: The Calm Before the Storm

Correa's head snapped up at the sound.

Fighting through the searing pain in his ruined hand, he looked the man over, wary from head to toe.

A head of striking white hair. A charcoal-gray Armani cashmere trench coat, cut with obvious craftsmanship.

Correa's first instinct was to step back half a pace, his good hand drifting reflexively toward the small of his back. "Who the hell are you?" he asked, on edge.

Harry wore the kind of warm, gracious smile that only ever came from old money. He spread his hands, showing he wasn't armed.

"Easy, pal. No need to get tense. I know him too."

He leaned in slightly, his voice as gentle as if he were discussing the weather. "Every night when I close my eyes and dream, all I want is to peel that man's skin off, one layer at a time."

The second Correa heard that, every taut nerve in his body eased. At a moment like this, the enemy of his enemy was a friend.

"You got wiped out by that son of a bitch Caesar too?" Correa spat through gritted teeth.

Harry smiled and nodded. "In a manner of speaking, yes."

Correa slapped his own thigh hard, like he'd just found a kindred spirit.

"Fuck! I knew it. That bastard's a walking disaster, making enemies everywhere he goes! You have no idea how twisted he is—"

Correa never finished the sentence.

His voice cut off dead.

A tiny, muffled thup—the sound of a puncture.

Correa's eyes flew wide. A mouthful of blood surged up and out over his lips. The excitement in his eyes vanished in an instant, replaced by a blank, drowning confusion.

Slowly, he lowered his head and looked down at his own chest.

At some point, without him ever noticing, Harry's right hand had come to rest flat against his left breast.

Harry's wrist gave a faint tremor. A six-inch titanium ice pick—razor-honed—slid out from his sleeve and drove precisely into the gap between Correa's third and fourth ribs, punching straight through the left ventricle of his heart.

The gracious, elegant smile never left Harry's face.

Correa's mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, a wet huk, huk leaking from his throat.

He stared fixedly at that smiling face, his eyes filled with an incomprehensible plea. Why?

Harry didn't answer. He turned his wrist and withdrew the ice pick in one clean motion—not a single drop of blood clinging to the blade.

Correa's body lost every ounce of support at once. He crumpled backward like wet clay, limbs twitching twice against the floor before going completely still.

A dark red stain spread rapidly across the pale airport tile.

"Aaaah—!!!"

"Someone's been stabbed!"

"Murder! Run!"

The travelers nearby finally spotted the body on the ground. Screams erupted from every direction, and the crowd scattered like a spooked flock of sheep.

Harry stayed exactly where he was, drawing a silk handkerchief embroidered with a family crest from his coat pocket and unhurriedly wiping the single bead of blood from his fingertips.

Behind him, his subordinate in the black jacket hesitated, glancing around at the chaos, then couldn't stop himself from asking in a low voice, "Boss, why'd you kill him?"

The man swallowed. "He just said Caesar was our common enemy. He might've been able to feed us intel—"

Harry finished wiping his hand and lifted his cold gaze to the subordinate, giving him one flat, indifferent look.

Crack!

Without a word, the subordinate's own hand shot up and slammed a brutal slap across his own face. The force was so heavy that the entire side of his face swelled before the eye could track it, a thin line of blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.

He bowed his head low, cold sweat beading on his forehead, not daring to say another syllable.

Harry folded the handkerchief and tossed it casually onto Correa's corpse.

"Know why I made you slap yourself?"

The subordinate bent even lower at the waist. "I spoke out of turn, sir."

Harry cast one final glance at the body on the floor, at Correa's wide, unclosed eyes. His tone carried a lofty, towering arrogance.

"If the enemy of my enemy turns out to be a piece of trash this pathetic..."

"Then it's an insult to my taste. And it would make everything I've prepared just to kill Caesar look utterly worthless."

"Let's go."

Harry pushed open the glass doors of the terminal and walked out into Nevada's dry desert wind.

A black stretched Cadillac—armored—already sat waiting silently at the curb. The driver had the door open in advance.

Harry ducked in and settled into the seat. The car eased smoothly into traffic and vanished without a trace, gone before the first police cruiser ever arrived.

...

Inside the terminal.

Thompson paced back and forth outside the restroom. He'd waited and waited, but his cousin still hadn't come back. He shot a look at his Rolex—boarding time was almost here.

Then, suddenly.

From the far end of the airport came a wave of sheer panic, a swarm of travelers screaming as they bolted for the exits.

Thompson's gut twisted.

He pushed against the tide of the crowd, shoving his way through.

And then he felt every drop of blood drain out of his body.

There was his cousin, Correa—a silk handkerchief jutting from his chest, sprawled in a vast pool of blood, eyes wide open, dead and unblinking.

Thompson's legs buckled. He dropped to his knees on the tile with a heavy thud.

"How could this happen..."

"How could this happen?!" Thompson clawed at his own hair in despair, his whole body shaking.

...

At that very same moment.

The Williams Group factory. In the plant manager's office.

When Marlowe shoved the office door open, he practically bounced inside with excitement.

The first words out of his mouth: "Caesar! How's that for a save—me and the boys took over the control room fast enough, right?"

He looked up, his face lit with pure exhilaration.

Caesar was leaning against the wide floor-to-ceiling window, arms crossed over his chest. He looked at Marlowe's eager face and let a faint smile tug at the corner of his mouth, giving a nod. "Good work. Didn't make me look bad."

Elizabeth sat behind the desk. She pulled a black Centurion Card from her Hermès bag, walked over to Marlowe, and held it out.

"Marlowe, this is just a small token from me. The PIN's on the back."

Her tone was sincere. "Take it and split it among the guys. If it weren't for the workers you brought in, the factory would've shut down cold today."

The instant Marlowe saw that card—that symbol of absolute wealth—he flinched back a full step.

He slapped his palm down flat on the desktop, blustering, eyes bugging. "Elizabeth, now you're treating me like a stranger!"

"If it wasn't for you and Caesar, me and my old man might be dead already! There's not a whole lot I can do for you two—no way in hell I'm taking your money."

Elizabeth shot Caesar a slightly helpless look.

Caesar walked over, took the black card out of Elizabeth's hand, and stuffed it straight into the pocket of Marlowe's tactical vest.

"This is Elizabeth paying your workers for their trouble. Just take it."

If Caesar was the one saying it—

Marlowe scratched the back of his head and cracked a sheepish grin.

"Well, since you're putting it that way, I won't argue."

He tucked the black card away.

The three of them were still talking when—

The Bloomberg financial news screen mounted on the wall opposite the desk suddenly cut away from the market feed and broke in with an emergency bulletin.

The face of a blond reporter filled the screen.

Behind her was the brightly lit main hall of Nevada International Airport. In the distance you could see yellow police tape strung up and the flashing red-and-blue lights.

The reporter's voice was rapid and crisp:

"We're just receiving breaking news. A violent stabbing has occurred at Nevada International Airport moments ago, leaving one person dead at the scene."

"According to eyewitnesses, the victim was killed by a single strike through the heart. The attacker's technique was described as extremely professional and brutal."

"The suspect's identity is currently unknown. The FBI and state police have sealed off the entire terminal and are pulling security footage for a full investigation..."

The feed cut to a close-up shot from the scene.

The camera zoomed in.

Thompson, kneeling in the blood, clutching Correa's corpse, weeping uncontrollably, his whole body trembling.

The office fell into instant, dead silence.

Elizabeth stared at the screen, saying nothing.

Just a few hours ago, that local kingpin had been swaggering and mouthing off at them in a black-market warehouse. Now he was nothing but a cold corpse.

Elizabeth was the first to break the silence. Her voice carried that cold, calculating edge unique to Wall Street.

"Could Thompson have done it?"

She turned to Caesar and laid it out. "The registered agent on all those cooked books for the factory is Correa. With Correa dead, Thompson can pin every charge on a dead man and dodge a federal indictment entirely."

She paused. "It's the classic Epstein maneuver. Shut the fall guy up permanently—before he ever gets a chance to talk."

Caesar stared at the desperation on Thompson's face on the screen and shook his head.

"He didn't do it."

Elizabeth's brow furrowed slightly. "How can you be so sure?"

Caesar picked up the remote and hit pause. The image froze on that single moment—Thompson on his knees, sobbing.

"If Thompson wanted him silenced, he had a dozen quieter places to do it. That black-market warehouse. Or he could've staged a car accident on the highway to the airport."

His eyes turned razor-deep. "But there is no way in hell he'd choose to do it at an international airport—cameras everywhere, massive foot traffic, federal jurisdiction."

"Thompson's greedy, but he's not stupid enough to poke the DHS. This kind of clean, one-strike kill... that's the work of a professional hitman."

Elizabeth listened to Caesar's read and found herself agreeing completely.

He was right. To murder someone in an American airport in the post-9/11 world—that was the choice of a lunatic, or an apex predator with absolute confidence.

Ring, ring, ring.

A sharp, encrypted phone tone suddenly cut through the heavy air in the room.

Caesar pulled out his custom tactical phone and glanced at the caller ID.

Something rare flickered across his hard, resolute face—surprise.

The name on the screen read: [Monica].