Chapter 6 - The Fall of Northbridge
We hit the cold marble floor together with a violent crash. Mercer gasped as the breath was knocked from his lungs, but he was a powerful man, fueled by pure, desperate survival instinct. He swung a heavy right fist, catching me square across my jaw. Pain exploded in my head, the taste of copper filling my mouth instantly.
I didn't care. The pain was nothing compared to the burning rage inside me.
I grabbed Mercer by his lapels, slammed my forehead directly into his nose, hearing a sharp, satisfying CRACK. Mercer screamed, blood spurting over his pristine white shirt. He flailed, trying to gouge his thumb into my eye, but I grabbed his wrist, twisting it violently downward, slamming his hand repeatedly against the hard marble until his fingers went limp.
"This is for Lauren!" I screamed into his face, raising my fist and slamming it down onto his jawline.
Mercer’s head snapped sideways. He groaned, his eyes rolling back, completely dazed.
"Daniel! Stop! Stand back!" Monroe shouted, appearing above us. She grabbed the back of my jacket collar and pulled me off the COO with incredible strength.
Two heavily armed State Police officers dropped to their knees beside Mercer, dragging his arms behind his back and snapping heavy steel handcuffs onto his wrists.
"Charles Mercer, you are under arrest for the murder of Lauren Mercer, conspiracy to commit murder, federal racketeering, and treason," Monroe formally read, her voice cold and steady despite the blood seeping through her head bandage.
Mercer spat blood onto the floor, staring up at me with pure, unadulterated hatred. "You think you won, Daniel?" he spat, his voice raspy and broken. "You think this ends with me? You have no idea how deep this goes! You’ve signed your own death warrant!"
"Take him away," Monroe ordered coldly.
The officers dragged Mercer to his feet and shoved him through the shattered remains of the front doors into the pouring rain, where dozens of federal agents were sweeping the grounds, securing the other security personnel.
I turned around instantly, my heart in my throat. "Sophie!"
Sophie peeked out from behind the velvet sofa, her small face pale and streaked with tears. I ran over, scooped her up into my arms, and held her against my chest. She buried her face into my shoulder, shaking like a leaf in a storm.
"It's over, baby," I whispered, tears spilling down my bruised cheeks. "It's over. Daddy's got you. No one is ever going to hurt you again."
Monroe walked over, setting her MP5 on a side table and wiping blood from her own temple with the back of her tactical glove.
"You look terrible, Mercer," she said, a faint, weary smile touching her bruised lips.
"You look worse," I managed a faint, bloody grin. "I thought you were in the ICU at Northwestern."
"I was," Monroe admitted, pulling a fresh pair of medical gloves from her pocket. "Until my partner came in and told me that Charles Mercer’s legal team had submitted a motion to impound the evidence from your house. I discharged myself against medical advice, called the FBI Field Office in Chicago, and showed them the unedited backup video from your wife's phone. Once they saw Mercer in your kitchen, the federal warrants took less than twenty minutes to clear."
She looked down at the floor near the entrance where two paramedics were tending to a body lying on a stretcher.
My heart sank. "Is that... Kevin?"
Monroe’s face darkened. She looked at me with deep sympathy. "The suppressed shot hit him in the left shoulder, Daniel. It missed his heart by two inches. He’s alive. The paramedics are stabilizing him now."
I closed my eyes, taking a deep, ragged breath. Alive. My brother was alive. He was going to live—and he was going to face the judgment of a court of law for what he had done to my wife.
"Where is my mother?" I asked quietly.
"Patricia Mercer was formally charged an hour ago as an accessory after the fact," Monroe revealed. "She’s currently being held at the Cook County Department of Corrections without bail. She confessed to helping Kevin transport Lauren's body. She... she admitted everything, Daniel."
I nodded slowly. The illusion of my family was completely gone, burned to ash in the span of forty-eight hours. The mother who had raised me and the brother I had spent my life protecting were gone, replaced by strangers who had traded my wife's life for their own selfish cowardice.
"What about the flash drive?" Monroe asked, gesturing to my right hand.
I looked down at my fist. I was still clutching the silver metallic drive so hard my knuckles were white. I held it out to her.
"This drive contains the complete master manifests for the Joliet intermodal operation," I said, my voice strong and clear. "It has the shell corporation accounts, the foreign intelligence wire transfers, and the names of every board member at Northbridge Logistics who authorized the shipments."
Monroe took the drive, placing it carefully inside a clear, biohazard evidence bag, and sealed it.
"This is going straight to the United States Attorney General's office," Monroe said. "This isn't just going to put Mercer away for life, Daniel. This is going to bring down the entire executive board of Northbridge Logistics. By tomorrow morning, the federal government will freeze every asset associated with the firm."
May you like
A sudden wave of exhaustion crashed over me. My legs felt like lead, my head was throbbing with a brutal headache, and my body was covered in mud, rain, and blood. But as I held my daughter tightly in my arms, listening to her steady breathing against my neck, the crushing weight that had been suffocating me since I stepped off that plane at O'Hare finally began to lift.
"Come on," Monroe said gently, placing her hand on my shoulder. "Let's get you and Sophie to a hospital to get checked out. And then... let's take your wife home."
