Chapter 18 - Face to Face
With his hired mercenaries neutralized and groaning in the dirt, Julian Vance panicked. He turned toward the dark tree line, stumbling over exposed tree roots in a desperate attempt to reach his idling Lincoln Navigator parked down the gravel road. He didn't make it twenty yards.
I sprinted through the shadows, catching him by the collar of his heavy designer coat just as he reached the edge of the driveway. With a single, powerful heave, I hurled him backward onto the gravel. He hit the ground hard, scraping his hands and knees against the sharp stones, his breath hitching in a pathetic, terrified gasp as he scrambled around to face me.
I stood towering over him in the freezing moonlight, the barrel of my Colt .45 lowered at my side, my breathing calm and steady while he hyperventilated like a trapped rodent. His bespoke coat was torn, his face smeared with mud and sweat, every vestige of his corporate elegance stripped away to reveal the hollow, cowardly shell beneath.
"You ruined me!" Julian screamed into the night air, tears of rage and humiliation streaming down his dirty face as he looked up at me. "My company is under federal receivership! My bank accounts are seized! I'm facing life in prison because you couldn't stay out of my marriage!"
"Your marriage ended the first time you raised your hand against my daughter," I replied coldly, stepping forward until the shadow of my frame covered him completely. "You thought your money gave you the absolute right to torment a woman who trusted you. You thought because you wore a suit and signed checks that no one would ever hold you accountable for the violence in your own home."
"I'll kill you!" he shrieked, reaching wildly into his coat pocket for a small, pearl-handled pocket pistol he had concealed in his lining.
May you like
He never even cleared the pocket. I stepped on his right wrist with my heavy tactical boot, pinning his arm against the freezing gravel until the small gun slipped from his numb fingers. I didn't strike him again; I simply stood over him as the distant sirens of the Virginia State Police and FBI tactical teams began echoing up the mountain valley.
"You're going to a federal supermax cell, Julian," I said softly as the flashing blue and red lights of a dozen patrol cars began illuminating the trees through the darkness. "And every morning when you wake up in a concrete cage, I want you to remember that the man who put you there didn't even have to fire a single shot to destroy your entire world."
