Chapter 12 - No Escape
Thomas was trembling so violently that he dropped his car keys into the wet gravel beneath his sedan. Cursing under his breath, he dropped to his knees, frantically groping around the tire.
"Looking for these?" a deep, resonant voice asked from the gloom.
Thomas gasped, stumbling backward against the car door. Standing six feet away was Julian Vance, holding the car keys dangling from his index finger. Behind Julian, emerging from the dark corners of the concrete parking garage like phantoms, were Ronald and three massive private security enforcers.
"I... I don't know what you're talking about, man! I'm just getting off my shift!" Thomas stammered, his eyes darting frantically for an exit, but the perimeter was completely sealed.
"You were paid two hundred thousand dollars by Mark Vance to assassinate my son," Julian said softly, stepping closer.
Thomas’s face drained of color. He reached into his scrub pocket, pulling out a concealed folding knife, flicking the four-inch blade out in desperate self-defense. "Stay back! Don't touch me! I have rights! I’ll gut you, you rich bastard!"
Julian didn't even blink. He didn't slow his pace.
When Thomas lunged forward with a wild, desperate thrust, Julian sidestepped the blade with effortless military precision. In a fraction of a second, Julian’s left hand locked around Thomas’s wrist, twisting the joint violently until the bone snapped with a sickening crack. The knife fell to the asphalt.
Before Thomas could scream, Julian’s right hand clamped over the man’s throat, driving him violently backward against the hood of the sedan. The metal caved in beneath the impact.
"A child," Julian whispered into Thomas’s terrified, sweating face, his fingers tightening just enough to let the man feel the suffocating edge of death. "You tried to murder a helpless, broken child in his sleep for paper."
"He... Mark told me... the kid was already brain-dead..." Thomas wept, blood bubbling from his split lip. "Please... don't kill me! I have a family!"
"You should have remembered that before you agreed to slaughter mine," Julian said coldly. He turned to Ronald. "Tie him up. Put him in the trunk. Deliver him directly to the precinct captain—with the hospital footage, the marked bank transfers from Mark's offshore account, and the laced saline bag. Make sure he is placed in general population. Let the other inmates learn what his crime was."
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Thomas wailed in despair as Ronald’s men dragged him away into the night.
Julian looked up at the fourth-floor window of the hospital, where a single light shone through the glass. His war was not yet finished.
