Chapter 5 - Betrayal in the House
The silence in the library was absolute.
For twenty-three years, Marcus Voss had been Damien Cross's shadow. He had taken a bullet for Damien in a parking garage in Southie. He had held Lily on his lap at her mother’s funeral while Damien stood in the rain, staring into an empty grave.
"Marcus," Damien said. His tone was strangely quiet, almost conversational, but his eyes were filled with an abyssal darkness. "Tell me she's lying."
Marcus didn't draw his gun, but his hand remained hidden inside his coat. A slow, bitter smile touched the corner of his broken mouth.
"She's not lying, Damien," Marcus said softly.
The two security guards at the door pulled their sidearms instantly, pointing them at Marcus.
"Lower your weapons," Damien commanded without looking at them. The guards hesitated, then lowered their muzzles, stunned by the revelation.
"Why?" Damien asked. "I gave you half of everything I built. You were family."
"Family?" Marcus let out a harsh, dry laugh. "Elena was family. Lily was family. What was I, Damien? I was the muscle. The man who cleared away the bodies so you could sit in this library with your fine scotch and pretend your hands were clean."
Marcus took a slow step away from the fireplace, his eyes darting toward the heavy mahogany desk where the house's master security console was located.
"Ten years ago, the Valentis offered me a way out," Marcus continued, his voice tight. "A full thirty percent share in the port expansion project if I cleared the way for them to take over the north territory. The car bomb wasn't supposed to hit Elena and the kid. It was supposed to be you in that car, Damien. You were supposed to die in Newton."
Lily, sensing the sudden, sharp shift in the room's energy, pulled Titan closer to her chest. She looked up at Marcus, her big dark eyes wide with innocence, completely unaware that the man who had bought her ice cream every Sunday for four years had murdered her mother.
Titan, however, felt the change instantly. The fur along his spine stood up in a rigid line. A low, silent vibration shuddered through his massive chest as he shifted his weight onto his hind legs, preparing to spring.
"You brought that dog into my house," Damien said, taking a step toward Marcus. "You brought him here knowing what he was."
"I didn't know!" Marcus snapped, his posture suddenly defensive. "I thought he was just a broken animal at a trash auction! I didn't know the Mercer girl’s father had hidden the drive in him until the Valentis called me two hours ago, screaming that a rogue asset had been spotted in Southie!"
Marcus’s hand whipped out from his jacket.
He didn't pull a gun. He pulled a small, black detonator switch—a short-range radio frequency remote designed to trigger the perimeter gas charges used to secure the estate's exterior in the event of an armed siege.
He pressed the red button.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
A series of heavy tear-gas canisters detonated along the terrace outside, shattering the thick glass doors and filling the library with a blinding, chocking cloud of white chemical smoke.
The security guards coughed, dropping to their knees as their eyes burned. Damien drew his weapon, firing two shots toward the position where Marcus had been standing, but the heavy smoke made target acquisition impossible.
In the confusion, Marcus lunged toward the open desk, grabbing a heavy iron briefcase containing the house's primary encrypted hard drives, and scrambled toward the shattered glass doors leading out into the dark, foggy garden.
"Lily!" Damien roared, lunging through the white cloud toward his daughter.
He reached her just as the thick smoke enveloped the room. Lily was coughing, terrified, her hands flying wildly in the air as she lost her spatial awareness in the whiteout.
Marcus sprinted across the wet stone terrace, heading for the secondary escape vehicle parked in the subterranean garage.
"Titan! GO!" Clara screamed from the floor, her voice cutting through the hiss of the gas canisters as she pointed toward the broken terrace door, making a sweeping forward arc with her right hand.
The massive Neapolitan mastiff didn't hesitate.
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He didn't care about the tear gas. He didn't care about the explosions. His eyes locked onto the kinetic command Clara had thrown through the smoke.
Titan launched himself across the library like an artillery shell. His massive 130-pound frame smashed through the remaining glass frames of the terrace door, his dark grey fur cutting through the smoke as he pursued Marcus into the foggy night.
