Chapter 15 - The Cell at Midnight
The Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago was an imposing, triangular concrete monolith rising twenty-eight stories above the city.
At 2:00 AM, the emergency generator in the sub-basement tripped.
The security cameras on the special housing unit on the ninth floor went dark for exactly four minutes.
Julian Cross sat on his metal bunk, staring at the concrete wall. He wore orange prison scrubs, his face haggard, his fingernails bitten raw.
He heard the heavy steel door slide open.
He stood up, expecting the night guard with a water pitcher.
Instead, Dominic Vale walked into the cell.
Dominic wore no coat. Just a black sweater, dark trousers, and leather gloves. His face was entirely devoid of emotion—no anger, no triumph, no malice. Just the terrifying stillness of an executioner carrying out a mathematical equation.
Julian backed up until his spine hit the cinderblock wall.
“How… how did you get in here?” Julian stammered, his voice cracking with pure terror. “This is a federal facility! There are guards outside!”
“There were guards,” Dominic said quietly. “Now there are men who have mortgages paid off in full.”
Julian began to shake violently. “The Voronins… did they—”
“Eleanor is in surgery,” Dominic answered, stepping into the tiny cell, closing the steel door behind him with a dull, final *thud*. “She will survive. Sophia is safe. My baby is kicking.”
Dominic reached into his pocket and pulled out a small glass vial containing an amber liquid and a pre-loaded syringe.
“You tried to kill my family in their home, Julian,” Dominic continued, his voice so soft it was almost gentle. “You sent soldiers to execute a pregnant woman. You crossed the only line that exists in this world.”
“Vale, please!” Julian dropped to his knees on the cold concrete, clasping his hands in desperate supplication. “Take everything! My offshore accounts, my shares in the southern ports, my properties in Miami… I will sign everything over to you! Just let me serve my sentence!”
Dominic looked down at him with those bottomless black eyes.
“A sentence means you wake up tomorrow,” Dominic said. “It means you eat breakfast. It means you remember Sophia’s face. I cannot allow you to remember her, Julian.”
Dominic moved with a speed that defied his size.
Before Julian could scream, Dominic’s left hand clamped over his mouth like a steel vise, pinning his head against the concrete. Dominic knelt, bringing the syringe to Julian’s neck with terrifying precision.
“Potassium chloride,” Dominic whispered into Julian’s ear as the needle slid beneath the skin. “It will look like a massive myocardial infarction caused by the stress of your indictment. The coroner won't ask questions. The U.S. Attorney won't investigate.”
Julian’s eyes bulged with animal panic, his hands clawing uselessly at Dominic’s iron forearm.
“Look at me, Julian,” Dominic commanded softly, his dark eyes the last thing Julian would ever see on this earth. “My wife forgave you. I did not.”
Dominic depressed the plunger.
May you like
Forty seconds later, Dominic Vale walked out of the cell, adjusted his cuffs, and stepped into the elevator as the security cameras flickered back to life.
***