Chapter 9 - The Reckoning
Marcus pulled the trigger.
The gunshot echoed over the roaring ocean, but Roman had already moved. He didn't dive for cover. He advanced, a phantom slipping through the rain. The bullet grazed Roman’s shoulder, tearing through his coat, but he didn't even flinch.
Before Marcus could cock the hammer for a second shot, Roman was on him.
Roman grabbed Marcus’s gun hand, twisting the wrist with such brutal force that the bone snapped with a sickening pop. Marcus screamed, dropping the revolver. Roman didn't stop. He drove his knee into Marcus’s ribs, a mirrored echo of the pain Elena had suffered for ten months.
Marcus collapsed to the wet pavement, gasping for air, clutching his shattered wrist.
Roman stood over him, pulling his 1911 pistol from his waistband. He aimed it directly at the spot between Marcus’s terrified eyes.
“Please,” Marcus begged, blood mixing with rain on his chin. “Roman, please. I have nothing. I’m nobody. Just let me walk away. I’ll disappear. You’ll never see me again.”
Roman stared down at the man who had haunted his family, the man who had forced a six-year-old boy to count pennies to keep his mother alive.
“You’re right, Marcus,” Roman said, his voice entirely void of mercy. “I will never see you again. And neither will they.”
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The gunshot was swallowed by a massive clap of thunder.
Roman holstered his weapon, turning his back on the lifeless body. He walked down the pier, the storm washing the blood from his hands, leaving the ghosts of his past behind him forever.
