Chapter 8 - The Shadow of the Beast
Daniel turned toward the wooden door.
"The police will receive a duplicate of that recording at precisely 08:00 AM tomorrow," Daniel said, his hand resting on the iron door handle. "By noon, Julian Sterling will be under federal indictment. By nightfall, his assets will be seized, his empire will crumble, and he will spend the rest of his natural life in a maximum-security federal penitentiary."
Daniel paused, looking back over his shoulder at the small boy standing in the dark.
"You have six hours, Leo," Daniel added quietly.
Leo blinked. "Six hours for what?"
"Six hours before the law takes him," Daniel whispered. "The law will give him a clean cell, three meals a day, medical care, and a team of forty lawyers to appeal his sentence for the next twenty years. He will live. He will breathe. He will watch the sunset through a window."
Daniel leaned closer, his shadow stretching across the ceiling like a giant beast crouching over the child.
"Is that the justice Sarah Miller deserves, Leo?" Daniel asked, his voice a hypnotic, deadly snake sliding into the boy's mind. "A comfortable cell for the man who crushed her windpipe against a concrete floor while she begged for her eight-year-old son?"
Leo’s breath hitched. The sharpened nail in his hand felt hot, burning against his bleeding palm.
"What... what do you want me to do?" Leo breathed.
Daniel reached into his pocket one last time and placed a small, brass object onto the crate beside the voice recorder.
It was a heavy, antique key with a elaborate, crest-shaped bow—the master key to the side gate of the Sterling Estate.
"The alarm system on the east wing is disabled between 02:00 AM and 02:15 AM for the guard rotation shift change," Daniel said, his voice barely a whisper now, yet filling the room like poison gas. "Julian sleeps in the ground-floor study when he drinks. He will be unconscious by midnight."
Daniel opened the door, stepping out into the dark hallway.
"The cake was twelve dollars, Leo," Daniel’s voice echoed from the shadows outside. "Consider the rest of the hundred my gift to your mother."
May you like
The heavy door closed. The lock clicked shut with a sharp, final thud.
Leo was left alone in the dark room, illuminated only by the dying, sputtering wax of the single pink candle.
