CHAPTER 13 — THE ROOFTOP EXCHANGE
Grant reached for the door.
I blocked him.
“You are not coming.”
“Thomas will kill you.”
“He wants the recordings.”
“He wants control of the case.”
My mother removed the monitoring clip from her finger.
“Mara, do not go alone.”
“I won’t.”
I looked at Grant.
“You’re coming with me.”
We entered the service stairwell while hospital security locked down the lower floors.
Grant glanced at me.
“You trust me?”
“No.”
“Good.”
On the roof, rain swept across the concrete.
Thomas stood near the helipad with a pistol in one hand and a small remote in the other.
Adrian knelt several feet away, blood running from his forehead.
A cable was locked around his neck and secured to a steel vent.
Thomas had taken him hostage.
“Mara,” Thomas called. “The cufflinks.”
I held them up.
“Release Adrian.”
“He tried to kill a man for money.”
“So did you.”
Thomas smiled.
“I stopped pretending law could deliver justice.”
“You stopped caring who you hurt.”
“Justice always hurts someone.”
“That is revenge.”
“Sometimes revenge is all justice leaves behind.”
Grant stepped onto the roof beside me.
Thomas’s expression darkened.
“You brought him.”
“He knows the encryption code.”
Grant did not react.
It was a lie.
Thomas looked between us.
“Come closer.”
We moved toward him.
Twenty feet.
Fifteen.
Ten.
Thomas raised the remote.
“I placed charges inside Helena’s hospital room.”
My stomach dropped.
“If I release this button, the room burns.”
Grant whispered without moving his lips.
“He’s lying.”
“How do you know?”
“The remote is for a car alarm.”
Thomas heard him.
He fired.
Grant shoved me aside.
The bullet struck his shoulder.
He fell against the concrete.
I threw the cufflinks toward Thomas.
His eyes followed them.
That was his mistake.
Adrian wrapped both hands around the cable and pulled backward, knocking Thomas off balance.
I lunged for the pistol.
Thomas struck me across the face.
For one second, I was back at the marble pillar.
Blood in my mouth.
A powerful man expecting me to fall.
I drove my knee into his injured side.
He collapsed.
Hospital officers rushed onto the roof.
Thomas reached for the cufflinks.
Grant covered them with his bloodied hand.
“No,” he said.
Thomas was arrested again.
Adrian survived.
Grant’s wound was serious but not fatal.
The recordings were delivered to federal prosecutors.
They captured Grant’s assault, Celeste’s instructions, Senator Whitlock’s attempt to destroy evidence, and several guests openly discussing how they would deny what they had seen.
The case was restored.
But one recording stunned everyone.
Minutes before the auction began, Malcolm Holloway had spoken privately with Thomas.
Malcolm said:
“Once Mara opens the vault, kill Celeste and Helena. Leave Elias alive. He’ll take the blame.”
Thomas answered:
“And Grant?”
May you like
Malcolm laughed.
“My son was born to be sacrificed.”
