Chapter 8 - Wrath in the Snow
The heavy oak door swung open, and Marcus shoved Viktor Thorne headfirst into the warm living room of the cabin.
Thorne stumbled across the hardwood floor, catching himself on the edge of the coffee table before looking up with a defiant, bloodied sneer. His tactical helmet was gone, revealing a jagged scar across his temple and eyes as cold as the mountain ice outside.
"You think you’ve won, Moretti?" Thorne spat, wiping a smear of blood from his lip. "Vance knows I’m here. If I don't check in by sunrise, an entire strike team will roll over this mountain and burn this cabin to the ground with you and those brats inside it."
I walked slowly out from the kitchen, my jacket unzipped, the gold wedding band gleaming faintly on my left hand as I picked up Mara’s leather ledger from the table.
"Julian Vance sends his attack dog to do his dirty work, and you still think you hold the cards," I said softly, tossing the heavy leather ledger onto the table in front of him.
Thorne glanced down at the book. When he recognized the embossed gold lettering on the cover, all the color drained from his face.
"Where... where did you get that?" Thorne stammered, his tough-guy facade instantly crumbling.
"My wife left it for me," I replied, stepping closer until I stood towering over him. "She spent her final months cataloging every crime your boss committed over the last decade. Every shell company, every payoff, every murder. It’s all here, Viktor. And as of twenty minutes ago, an encrypted copy of this ledger was automatically uploaded to federal prosecutors and every major media outlet in the country, set with a dead-man’s switch linked to my heartbeat."
Thorne’s eyes widened in sheer horror. "You... you leaked the entire network?"
"Vance is finished," I said flatly. "His assets will be frozen by morning, his syndicates will be hunted down by federal agencies, and his rivals will carve up what’s left of his territory before the snow melts. He won't have time to send a strike team to my mountain. He’ll be too busy running for his life."
"You're bluffing," Thorne whispered, though his voice shook.
"Ask yourself," I said, leaning down until my face was inches from his. "Do you really want to gamble your life on whether Victor Moretti bluffs?"
Thorne swallowed hard, his defiance completely broken. He slumped back against the coffee table, defeated.
"What do you want?" he asked quietly.
May you like
"I want names," I said. "Every local official on Vance’s payroll in Chicago and Denver. And I want a signed confession detailing how he manipulated Vanessa into tearing apart my wife’s home."
Thorne looked up, realizing he had no other choice. "Give me a pen."
