Chapter 185 Catherine’s POV
Chapter 185 Catherine’s POV
The police called us into the station to see the suspected culprit from the shooting. Inside the glass-walled interrogation room of the station, it felt like a suffocating scent of cheap coffee and sweat. I sat in the corner of the metal bench, my knees drawn tightly against my chest. After scrubbing consistently to remove Tyler's blood, my hands looked lean but my skin felt different.
Beside me, Richard stared blankly at the dark two way mirror set into the concrete wall. We hadn't spoken a word to each other since leaving the hospital lobby, especially after we heard that Tyler was now in coma and it was a fifty percent chance of survival.
The silence between us was cold and unforgiving, a void built out of betrayed trust and shared grief. Through the steel door, a sharp commotion broke out down the hallway. The door to the observation room swung open and the lead FBI operative assigned to the breach stepped in... Agent Miller on his badge. He pulled off his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose with a long exhausted sigh.
"We got him," Miller said, voice flat and devoid of victory, "he was pinned against the fence twice blocks north of the plaza, he had a collapsible sniper rifle with a laser sight packed into a hard case in his trunk."
Richard didn't move his head, but his jaw tightened until the bone threatened to break through his skin, "who is he?"
"His name is Kenneth," Miller replied, a thick folder against his thigh, "former private security contractor dishonourably discharged eight years ago. We put him in the box ten minutes ago, he didn't even try to lay up. Once he realized he was facing federal attempted murder and domestic charges."
Miller stepped closer, flipping open the folder under the harsh overhead white light, "he was the one sending the texts, been tailing you for nearly three months from your flat in London onto your flight back here and straight to the hotel safehouse." A cold, sharp knife turned in my gut. I looked up, my voice barely a thread in the quiet room, "why? I don't know Kenneth, I've never seen him before in my life."
"You don't know him, Mrs. McAlister," Miller said, his eyes locking onto mine with a dark, suspicious look, "but he knows your family. Vance wasn't working alone, he was a hired gun and a ghost on a payroll."
"Who paid him?" Richard demanded, his voice dropping into a low growl that echoed off the concrete, "who Gabe him.the money to hunt my mother?"
Agent Miller hesitates for a second, his gaze flicking between Richard and me, measuring the impact of the blow he was about to deliver, he reaches into a folder, pulling out a print out of bank wire transfers and a series of recorded prison phone logs.
"The wire payments were routed through an offshore shell corporation based in the Bahamas," Miller explained calmly, "it took our financial crimes unit twenty minutes to pierce the ground wall. The account was set up eighteen months ago that bypassed the federal asset forfeiture seizure."
Miller laid a single sheet of paper onto the metal table between us, "the funds were released, and the directives were issued, directly from the state penitentiary here in.the states," Millar said softly, "by your father, Micheal McAlister."
The room seemed to violently lose all air, he stared at the paper as if it were a venomous snake coiled on the metal surface, "Micheal...? No... no, that's impossible, he is serving a long term sentence, he's locked away in maximum security!"
"He's locked away, but he isn't isolated," Miller countered grimly. "Micheal used a corrupted guard to smuggle in a burner phone, for months, he's been communicating directly with Kenneth."
"Why?" I choked out, a wave of sickening nausea surging up my throat, tearing through the thin layer of composure I had left, "why would that man... Why would Michael want to kill me?!"
"He didn't order Kennetth to kill you initially, Catherine," Miller said, reading directly from the interrogation, "Kenneth's original contract was purely for surveillance and psychological warfare. Micheal wanted you to watch twenty-four hours a day, he wanted to know every step you took, every breath you drew and every person you spoke to."
Miller turned the page, his expression darkening, "he was obsessed with keeping you isolated, trapped in the ghost of the family name. According to him, you completed everything he worked so hard for." A violent shudder ran through my entire body, I pulled my arms tighter around myself feeling as if the walls were closing in to crush me.
"Kenneth was funded to eliminate any man who dared to lay a hand on you, he wanted to break you completely before finishing the job. His aim, as long as Micheal wasn't happy then you shouldn't have a good life... a clear message. Thankfully you returned to the states where it was easy to apprehend him."
"My God..." Richard whispered, he dropped his head into his blood stained hands, a broken sound escaping his chest. His shoulders heaved as the twisted reality crashed down on him.
"Vance confirmed that the shot taken tonight was meant for Tyler the moment he stepped between you and the glass," Miller added quietly. I squeezed my eyes shut, laying my forehead against the cold edge of the bench.
Micheal's corrupt controlling shadow lived on through a legacy of absolute authority that cared nothing for love, life or even family, "I can't believe I actually used to love that man," I muttered under my breath. While trying to escape the darkness of my past, I had dragged Tyler straight into the sights of my ex husband's vengeful wrath.
As the quiet hum of the station settled over the room, I knew that no matter whether Tyler survived the comatose or slipped away into the night, the shattered pieces of my family could never, ever be put back together again.