Chapter 7 - The Visitor in Federal Custody
The subterranean detention ward of the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac smelled of industrial floor wax, cold concrete, and bitter, rotting pride.
Viktor Vance sat on the edge of a stainless-steel cot bolted to the wall of his solitary cell, wearing an oversized orange institutional jumpsuit.
His styled vanity had been completely stripped away; his hair was unwashed, hanging in stringy tangles across his pale, sallow face. His wrists and ankles were secured with heavy steel transport chains.
The heavy steel slider door buzzed open with a loud hydraulic clank.
Damian Cross walked into the cell.
He did not hurry. His leather dress boots clicked rhythmically against the concrete with a slow, deliberate cadence. He wore an elegant dark charcoal wool overcoat over his three-piece suit, his posture commanding, sovereign, and entirely unbothered.
Viktor flinched back against the concrete wall, his bloodshot eyes widening in a mixture of feral hatred and visceral terror.
"You came to gloat, nephew," Viktor spat, his voice cracking into a dry, hoarse rasp.
"I came to look at you, Viktor," Damian said softly, stopping three paces from the cot. "I wanted to see what ten years of stolen ambition looked like when the curtain was finally pulled back."
"You were nothing without my connections to the municipal board, Damian!" Viktor hissed, leaping to his feet, his transport chains rattling violently against the steel belt around his waist. "You were an arrogant boy who fell in love with a penniless draftsman! I saved this empire from being divided! I kept the Cross family at the pinnacle of this city!"
"You didn't save an empire, Viktor," Damian replied, his slate-gray eyes locking onto his with freezing clarity. "You forged a suicide note, terrorized a mother of two, and tried to starve my children in the dark for eighty-five million pieces of silver. You believed that because Sloan was gentle, she was weak. You believed that because I mourned her in silence, I was blind."
Damian reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a copy of the morning's unsealed federal grand jury indictment.
He dropped the heavy document onto the steel cot.
"Harrison Sterling signed a full confession at sunrise, Viktor," Damian said. "He detailed every offshore routing token, every forged municipal inspection report, and the fact that you ordered the debt collectors to stalk my daughters' school in Fremont."
Viktor’s breath hitched in his throat. He looked down at the forty-eight felony counts listed on the parchment, his hands shaking so violently that the paper fluttered against his knees.
"Harrison... confessed?" he whispered, his voice finally breaking into a pathetic, terrified whimper.
"Harrison saved himself, Viktor," Damian answered quietly. "Just as you tried to save yourself at my father's table. The Vance assets have been completely liquidated by the federal receivership, and your legal defense trust has a balance of zero."
Viktor collapsed onto the cot, burying his face in his cuffed hands, weeping with the raw, ugly agony of a man who had realized that his vanity had left him completely alone in the dark.
"Damian... please," he sobbed through his fingers. "I'm your blood... your father's brother... tell Arthur to drop the racketeering counts... I'll sign whatever waiver you want..."
Damian looked at the broken man on the cot.
The patriarch who had ruled through fear and manufactured division was gone forever, replaced by an empty shell whose cruelty had consumed his own future.
"You ceased being my blood the night you drove my wife and unborn children into the rain, Viktor," Damian whispered softly. "And now you can spend the rest of your life counting the cold."
Damian turned his back on the broken conspirator.
May you like
"Guard," Damian called out.
The heavy steel door slid open, and Damian walked down the echoing corridor into the bright morning sunshine of Seattle, leaving Viktor Vance to weep in the concrete shadows where he would remain for thirty-two years.
