Chapter 76 Snare
My brain refused to process the image in front of me.
Silas.
The man who had driven me to the vet while Nero was dying. The man who had swept the Master Suite for bugs. The man Tristan trusted with his life.
"Silas?" I whispered.
"Drop the pen, Minerva," Silas said. His voice was no longer distorted. It was his own, flat and professional. The same voice he used to give perimeter updates.
"What are you doing?" I asked, my fingers tightening around the stun baton concealed in my pocket.
"I'm following orders," he said, taking a slow step toward the ring of light. "Drop the pen. Slowly. Or I shoot you where you stand."
"Tristan," I breathed, knowing the comms channel was open. "It's Silas."
Silence.
No orders in my ear. No shout from the wings.
The snipers in the lighting booths didn't fire. The tactical teams didn't rush the stage.
Silas smiled, a small, humorless curve of his lips.
"They can't hear you," he said, tapping his own earpiece. "I switched the frequency on the master console ten minutes ago. They’re listening to a loop of your footsteps. Tristan is pacing in the wings, waiting for a ghost."
The bottom dropped out of my stomach. The trap hadn't just failed. The trap belonged to him.
"Why?" I asked, backing away slightly, keeping the crate between us. "Ida is paying you? Veridian pays you double what she could offer."
"It's not about money," Silas said, stopping at the edge of the light. He kept the gun leveled at my chest. "It's about loyalty."
"Loyalty to a murderer?"
"Loyalty to the family," he corrected. "I've worked for the Johnstons for fifteen years. I watched the old man drink himself to death. I watched the mother slowly fade away. I watched Tristan build the empire."
He took another step.
"And I watched Ida hold it all together," he said, his voice hardening. "She was the glue. She made the hard choices. She sacrificed her own life to make sure Tristan succeeded."
"She poisoned him! She manipulated him!"
"She protected him!" Silas barked. "From gold-diggers. From distractions. From you. You were a mistake, Minerva. You made him weak. You made him soft."
"And the cat?" I spat, the anger finally cutting through the terror. "Was poisoning my cat protecting the family?"
"A warning," Silas shrugged. "To remind him that he can't protect everything. To remind him that he needs his sister. But he didn't listen. He tore the house apart. He cut her off."
He raised the gun slightly, aiming for my head.
"She called me from the precinct," Silas said. "Before they transferred her. She told me the plan had to change. The warning wasn't enough. The infection had to be cut out permanently."
"You're going to kill me," I stated. It wasn't a question.
"I'm going to make it look like an accident," he clarified. "An old building. A tragic fall from the catwalks. Tristan will be devastated, of course. But he'll survive. He always does. And eventually, he'll realize he needs Ida to put the pieces back together."
My mind raced, frantically searching the vast, dark auditorium for a way out. The tactical teams were deaf to my comms, but they were still physically here.
I just need to make noise.
I looked at the heavy flashlight resting on the crate next to the blueprints.
If I threw it at him, he would shoot.
If I screamed, he would shoot.
I needed to close the distance. I needed to use the baton.
"Silas," I said, forcing my voice to tremble, playing the victim he thought I was. "Please. You don't have to do this. We can pay you. Tristan will give you anything you want."
"I don't want his money," Silas said, stepping fully into the halogen light. He was less than ten feet away now. "I want his legacy preserved."
"He'll know," I cried, taking a deliberate step to the left, feigning a stumble on my heels. "He'll know it was you! You're head of security!"
"Which is why I'm the one who will 'discover' your body," he said calmly. "I'll say you wandered off the path. That the floorboards gave way. I'll be the one to comfort him."
He reached out his free hand.
"Come here," he ordered. "Let's go for a walk."
I took a deep breath.
Now.
I kicked off my Louboutins.
The sudden loss of height threw Silas off for a fraction of a second.
In that second, I didn't run away. I lunged forward.
I grabbed the heavy metal flashlight off the crate and hurled it directly at his face with all my strength.
Silas cursed, throwing his arm up to block the heavy projectile. The flashlight glanced off his forearm, but the distraction was all I needed.
I closed the remaining distance, pulling the stun baton from my pocket.
I jammed the metal prongs directly into the center of his tactical vest.
And I pressed the button.
The sound of the high-voltage discharge echoed like a thunderclap in the empty theater. A bright blue arc of electricity jumped from the baton.
Silas convulsed violently. His eyes rolled back in his head. The gun slipped from his fingers, clattering onto the wooden stage.
He dropped like a stone, hitting the floor with a heavy thud.