Chapter 8 - the shadow of saint jude
The room fell into dead silence, broken only by the soft hum of the cassette tape.
Cole's jaw clenched so tight the muscles in his neck strained against his collar. His dark eyes burned with an icy, terrifying fury. All his life, he had been told his mother had died in a rainy highway crash. He had spent twenty years honoring the very men who had murdered her.
Harold's voice continued on the tape:
"Silas used family money to pay off the investigators. I was too weak then to tear the family apart, so I waited. I built a trap that would take twenty years to spring. The leather folder in this box contains the original bank transfers signed by Silas paying the hitmen. It also contains the master override code to every offshore account the Mercer syndicate owns."
Harold took another heavy breath on the recording.
"Cole, you cannot reform this family. It is rotten to the core. Use the override code to drain the board's accounts. Bankrupt them. Give the money to the legitimate foundation, take Hannah and Owen, and burn the syndicate to the ground. This is my final command."
The tape ended with a soft click.
Cole slowly turned around to face the doorway. Silas stood in the threshold, flanked by two new figures who had slipped down the stairs quietly—two men wearing dark tactical jackets bearing the emblem of the Valenti syndicate, the Mercer family's fiercest rival family.
Silas was smiling now, a desperate, manic look in his eyes.
"Fascinating story, wasn't it?" Silas said softly. "My dear brother Harold always was a melodramatic fool."
"You killed my mother," Cole said, his voice dropping into a hollow, terrifying whisper.
"She was a risk to our business!" Silas snapped. "Just like Hannah! And just like that brat sitting on the table!"
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Silas pulled a small detonator switch from his pocket. "Did you really think I came here alone, Cole? I've placed thermite charges on the main power lines of this building. In two minutes, this entire basement will be plunged into blackness, and my friends from the Valenti family will clean up this mess once and for all."
Silas pressed the red button on the detonator.
