Chapter 7 - The Reckoning with Julian
The sub-basement holding cells were cold, damp, and smelled of decades of limestone and forgotten sins.
Julian Sterling sat strapped to a metal chair in the center of the interrogation room. His bespoke suit was torn, his wire-rimmed glasses were gone, and his right eye was swollen completely shut from Adrien’s strike.
When the heavy iron door creaked open, Julian flinched, pulling against the leather restraints.
Adrien walked in alone. He wasn’t wearing his armor now. He had changed into a clean black suit, his hair combed back, looking every bit the calm, untouchable CEO who sat on museum boards and attended charity galas. He pulled a wooden chair across the concrete floor, screeching loudly, and sat down three feet in front of the bound lawyer.
“The assault team is dead, Julian,” Adrien said casually.
Julian’s good eye widened in despair. “All of them?”
“Eleven bodies in the conservatory. Three on their way back to Luciano with broken hands.” Adrien crossed his legs. “Your grand corporate merger failed before sunrise.”
Julian let his head drop back against the metal frame of the chair, laughing a broken, wheezing laugh. “Then kill me, Adrien. Get it over with. You think you’ve won? The feds have my files! The offshore wire transfers—they’re linked to your private accounts! Even if Luciano doesn’t take your head, the Department of Justice will seize this entire estate within six months!”
Adrien reached into his pocket and pulled out a sleek black flash drive.
He held it up between two fingers.
Julian’s laughter choked in his throat. His face went entirely gray. “Where... where did you get that?”
“Elena,” Adrien said smoothly. “While you were busy poisoning her tea, you didn’t notice her pocketing the backup drive from your laptop case on the counter. She handed it to me along with your cufflink before she lost consciousness.”
Julian began to shake violently. “Adrien... listen to me... that drive has my personal life insurance on it. Every transaction, every account Luciano owns in Europe, every corrupt senator on their payroll—”
“I know,” Adrien interrupted. “I spent the last twenty minutes having my cyber team review the contents. You didn’t just document my business, Julian. You documented everyone’s business. You were planning to sell out Luciano to the feds the second you took over my territory, wasn’t that the plan? A clean slate. Legitimate power.”
“I could have made us billionaires!” Julian screamed, straining against the leather straps until his wrists bled. “Real billionaires! Untouchable! Not hiding in a mountain fortress waiting for the next hitman!”
Adrien leaned forward, his voice a soft, deadly murmur.
“You tried to poison a twenty-six-year-old mother who came to this country with nothing and worked sixteen hours a day to build a life for her child. You tried to make an orphan out of a baby who has never known anything but this house.”
“She was a maid, Adrien!” Julian spat, pure venom leaking from his lips. “She was nobody!”
Adrien stood up.
“In this house, Julian, loyalty makes you somebody. Betrayal makes you nothing.”
Adrien walked to the door, knocking once on the heavy iron.
Caleb opened it from the outside, stepping into the room holding a single black leather bag.
“Boss?” Caleb asked.
“He likes synthetic poison,” Adrien said without looking back. “Give him the exact dosage he prepared for Elena. Not a microgram less. Let him sit in this dark room and feel his lungs freeze just like she did.”
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“No! Adrien, please! No! Shoot me! Just shoot me!” Julian’s screams tore through the sub-basement, bouncing off the stone walls as the heavy iron door slammed shut, cutting off the sound of his begging forever.
***
