Chapter 6 - A Broken Ring on Cold MarbleJulian Thorne fell to his knees on the Persian rug, clutching his bruised ribs, his breath coming in ragged, terrified gasps.
“Damian! What the hell is the meaning of this?” Julian shouted, trying to muster his aristocratic arrogance. “Your thugs dragged me out of my club in Midtown! My father is currently on the phone with the Police Commissioner! You cannot kidnap an executive of the Manhattan Trust!”
Damian rose smoothly to his feet. He didn't shout. He didn't raise a fist. He simply walked over to the desk, picked up the yellowed mechanic’s invoice and the Westchester clinic intake form, and tossed them onto the rug in front of Julian’s knees.
Julian looked down at the papers.
All the color drained from his face within half a second.
“Recognize your signature, Julian?” Damian asked, his voice softer than silk and colder than dry ice.
“I... I don't know what these are,” Julian stammered, his eyes darting wildly toward the closed oak doors. “These are ancient administrative files! Old clinic leases!”
“You signed off on my sister’s murder,” Damian said, stepping closer until his polished oxford shoe rested on Julian’s trembling hand, slowly pressing down until the bones creaked.
Julian screamed in pain, arching his back. “Damian! Stop! Please! It wasn't my idea! It was my father! Harold Thorne planned the whole thing!”
“Tell me about the steering column,” Damian commanded, pressing down a fraction harder.
“Alyssa had the Zurich accounts!” Julian sobbed, tears spilling down his pale cheeks. “She found out that our family’s bank had been insolvent for three years! We were running a five-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme using your syndicate’s logistics cash flow to cover the interest! If she showed you the balance sheets, your father would have liquidated our family overnight!”
I watched from the armchair as the grand illusion of New York’s high-society aristocracy crumbled into pitiful, groveling desperation.
“So you tampered with her car,” Damian said, his voice dropping into a deadly, horrifying register.
“We just wanted to scare her!” Julian wept. “We wanted her in a coma for a few weeks until the merger contracts were signed! But when she survived the crash with her mind intact, Mercer said she was going to demand a state police escort. We had no choice, Damian! We had no choice!”
“You always had a choice,” Damian whispered.
He removed his foot from Julian’s hand. He turned to Gabriel, who stood motionless by the doorway with his arms crossed over his massive chest.
“Take him down to the sub-basement vaults,” Damian ordered. “Keep him awake. He will provide a sworn, recorded deposition to the Federal Attorney General’s special task force at sunrise.”
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“No! Not the feds!” Julian shrieked as Gabriel’s men hauled him up by his armpits. “Damian, if the feds take our ledgers, our entire empire collapses!”
“Your empire died six years ago on the Taconic Parkway,” Damian replied coldly. “You’ve just been living in its corpse.”
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