Chapter 8 - The Desert Run to Red Rock BasinBy 4:00 PM, the news of the canyon ambush had begun to leak through the emergency scanners across Clark County.
Rumors of an explosion near the Valley of Fire spread like wildfire through the casino executive suites, sending the stock prices of the Sterling Gaming Corporation tumbling into freefall.
Inside the private executive penthouse of the Mirage Resort, Harold Sterling was pacing across his imported Italian marble floors, sweating through his seven-thousand-dollar Brioni suit.
His cellular phone was pressed to his ear, his fingers trembling violently as he dialed the emergency satellite frequency for the fifth time.
“Viktor! Answer the damn phone!” Harold screamed into the receiver. “Where is the confirmation file? The board meets in thirty minutes!”
The heavy double doors of the penthouse burst open with a concussive crash that sent wooden splinters raining across the foyer.
Four armed operators in black tactical gear swept into the suite, their submachine guns raised, clearing the corners with lethal speed.
Harold dropped his phone. The device shattered against the marble floor.
Walking through the ruined doorway, flanked by Marco and six senior enforcers, was Dominic Cassel.
And walking at his right side, dressed in an elegant midnight-blue dress that draped gracefully over her splinted left arm, was Sylvie Laurent.
Harold stumbled backward, his hip crashing into the glass conference table, knocking over a crystal decanter of vintage bourbon.
“Dominic...!” Harold choked out, his skin turning the sickly shade of old parchment. “What... what is the meaning of this illegal invasion? My private security detail—”
“Your private security detail is currently floating face-down in the canyon wash, Harold,” Dominic said, his voice carrying the terrifying resonance of a church bell tolling for the dead.
Dominic walked down the center of the room, stopping three paces from the trembling commissioner.
Marco stepped forward, setting a heavy metal lockbox onto the glass table.
He opened the lid.
Inside lay the altered firing pin from the armory, the surveillance photographs of Victoria slamming the steel door onto my hand, and thirty pages of encrypted bank transfer records linking Harold Sterling’s private accounts to the Sonora cartel.
Dominic looked down at the commissioner with absolute, unyielding disgust.
“You sent twenty mercenaries to assassinate me on my father’s road,” Dominic murmured. “You had your daughter alter my weapon so it would blow my hand apart when I tried to return fire. And you threatened to slaughter an innocent sixteen-year-old girl in her bed if her sister spoke the truth.”
Harold fell to his knees on the marble, his hands clasped together in desperate, groveling supplication.
“Dominic, please! It was the cartel! They were going to kill me! I owed them eighty million dollars from the Macau expansion! I had no choice!”
“You had the choice to die with honor, Harold,” Dominic replied softly. “Instead, you chose to die as a coward.”
The private elevator chimed.
Two federal marshals in plainclothes stepped into the penthouse, accompanied by the United States Attorney for the District of Nevada.
“Harold Sterling,” the federal prosecutor announced, holding up an arrest warrant. “You are under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder, federal racketeering, and international money laundering.”
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As the marshals hauled the weeping commissioner away in heavy steel chains, Dominic turned his gaze onto me.
“The city is clean, Sylvie,” he whispered, his gray eyes shining with an emotion that took my breath away. “The debt is paid.”
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