Chapter 5 - The Judas Syringe
The glass door of Elena’s room slid open with a soft, pneumatic hiss.
"You're not supposed to be here, Marcus," the man said.
His voice was muffled by the mask, but the cadence—arrogant, calm, devoid of any human empathy—was as familiar to me as my own reflection.
"Julian," I spat.
My brother didn't flinch. He slowly lowered the mask, revealing the sharp, aristocratic jawline and cold, pale blue eyes he had inherited from our father. But where our father had used those eyes to navigate ships through North Atlantic storms, Julian used them to calculate human collateral.
"You should have stayed in Rotterdam," Julian said quietly, stepping into the room. He didn't look at Elena. He looked at the cardiac monitor above her head, watching the green trace of her heart pulse erratically. "The storm was supposed to delay your flight until tomorrow morning. By then, the memorial service would have been concluded. The cremation was scheduled for 7:00 AM."
A wave of pure, red heat roared in my ears. "You put her in the ground. You put my pregnant wife in a pine box while she was still breathing."
"She was never supposed to be in the cellar, Marcus," Julian said, his voice terrifyingly matter-of-fact, like an accountant explaining an overlooked deduction. "Claire panicked. She gave Elena the dose, but Elena didn't lose consciousness immediately. She fought. She broke two vials. The dose was incomplete. Claire couldn't bring the body to the hospital for the fake stillbirth protocol without risk, so she hid her in the basement until the transport van arrived."
"You bought Claire."
"Claire’s brother owes six hundred thousand dollars to loan sharks in South Boston," Julian replied smoothly. "We bought his debt. It was clean. It was simple. Elena found the Antwerp manifests. She wouldn't take the settlement. She was going to go to the federal prosecutor on Monday, Marcus. She was going to drag Vance Maritime into receivership. She was going to destroy forty years of our family’s legacy for what? A moral crusade?"
"She is my wife!" I roared, lunging forward.
Julian moved with shocking speed. He didn't drop the syringe; he swung his left arm, smashing an iron-plated tactical flashlight directly into the side of my jaw.
The blow threw me sideways. I crashed into the stainless-steel crash cart, sending trays of scalpel blades, gauze, and saline bottles crashing across the linoleum. Pain flared across my skull, blinding and white.
"She was an outsider," Julian hissed, stepping over the debris and pressing the sole of his heavy leather shoe onto my chest, pinning me to the floor. "She married into this bloodline, and she thought she could police it. And you... you were always our father’s weak little romantic. You thought love was more important than equity."
He raised the syringe.
"Potassium chloride," Julian murmured, tapping the glass barrel. "Directly into the central line. Her heart stops in forty seconds. The toxicology will show it as hyperkalemia resulting from acute renal failure caused by her 'fall.' Tragic. And then, little brother, you’ll inherit fifty percent of the grief, and I’ll inherit the other fifty percent of the company."
"Get off me!" I snarled, clawing at his leg.
"Goodbye, Elena," Julian whispered, turning toward the IV manifold.
He raised the needle to insert it into the rubber port of Elena's line.
From the floor, my hand swept across the scattered surgical instruments. My fingers closed around a six-inch curved bone chisel that had fallen from the orthopedic tray.
May you like
With every ounce of leverage left in my broken body, I drove the steel spike upward through the top of Julian’s leather boot, pinning his foot directly to the floorboards.
***
