What Men Choose
Chapter 12 - What Men Choose
The tunnel smelled of damp brick, rust, and old departures.
Victor stood ten feet from Nathan Vale with a gun in his hand and a boy between them.
Nicky Ferrell's eyes were open, glassy with fear. He was younger than Victor expected. Sixteen, maybe, though illness had reduced him to angles beneath a blanket.
Paul's son.
Nathan's thumb rested against the syringe.
"Put the gun down," Nathan said.
Victor did not.
"You were at my mother's funeral."
Nathan's smile flickered.
"Don't personalize business. You taught me that."
"You held my sister while she cried."
"And billed you by the hour afterward."
Victor's finger tightened on the trigger.
Above them, through two floors of concrete and market noise, Sadi stood with Mick O'Shea and understood nothing except that Victor had gone silent on comms.
That silence felt like a hand closing around her throat.
Mara kept Declan pinned near the book stall. Paul had disappeared toward the tunnel access after Victor, but his voice was also gone.
Sadi looked at Mick.
He was smiling again.
"Something happened," she said.
"Maybe."
"What did Vale plan?"
Mick's smile grew.
"You think I'm afraid of Costello?"
"Yes."
The simple answer annoyed him.
"Victor has rules. Vale doesn't. That's the difference."
Sadi looked at the ring on Mick's hand. The medical transmitter. The signal that led them to Nicky.
Then at Declan.
Declan looked nervous.
Not cruel now.
Nervous.
Sadi stepped closer to Mick.
"If Nicky dies, Paul kills you. If Victor dies, everyone kills you. If I die, Sam spends the rest of his life believing his sickness murdered his sister."
Mick blinked.
"And?"
"And if you tell me how to stop Vale, maybe you get prison instead of whatever all those people want."
Mick laughed.
"Prison? Darling, men like me don't survive prison."
"Then help me give you a problem to look forward to."
Mara's gaze cut toward her.
Sadi was not sure if she had gone too far.
Then Declan spoke.
"The attorney has a dead man's switch."
Mick snapped, "Shut up."
Declan swallowed.
"If he doesn't send a code every ten minutes, files release. Not just Caldwell. Everybody. Costello's old deals too."
Sadi went still.
"Where's the switch?"
Declan looked at his uncle.
Mara pressed the revolver harder.
He answered.
"His watch."
In the tunnel, Victor heard Nathan say the same thing.
"If you kill me, everything goes public," Nathan said. "Your accounts. Your judges. Your quiet arrangements. The men who will testify you ordered things you never touched. You'll spend the rest of your life caged."
Victor's gun did not move.
"And if I let you walk?"
"You give me the drive. Caldwell resigns quietly for health reasons. Preston disappears. Mick takes the blame for the hospital mess. The maid gets money. The boys live."
Nicky's breathing hitched.
Nathan smiled at him.
"A clean solution."
Paul came up behind Victor, weapon drawn.
He saw his son and nearly broke again.
"Nicky."
"Dad," the boy whispered.
Nathan pressed the syringe closer.
"Guns down. Both of you."
Paul's hand shook.
Victor lowered his gun first.
Nathan's eyes shone.
"Love makes dogs of men."
"No," Victor said.
He placed the gun on the floor.
"Love tells you which rules were rotten to begin with."
Nathan frowned.
A small sound came from the tunnel speaker system above them.
Static.
Then Sadi's voice.
"Victor. His watch."
Nathan's expression changed.
Victor moved.
Not toward Nathan.
Toward the wall.
He ripped the old emergency hose from its bracket and swung the metal nozzle into the overhead pipe. Water burst down in a violent sheet.
Nathan flinched.
Paul fired once.
Not at Nathan.
At the syringe.
Glass shattered. Liquid splashed harmlessly across the floor.
Victor crossed the distance and took Nathan down without spectacle. One strike. One twist. The attorney hit the brick floor gasping, his watch pinned beneath Victor's shoe.
Paul was already cutting Nicky free.
"Dad," Nicky sobbed.
Paul gathered his son into arms that had broken men and now trembled holding one frightened boy.
Victor removed the watch from Nathan's wrist and looked at the blinking countdown.
Two minutes and fourteen seconds.
Nathan laughed through blood on his lip.
"You don't know the code."
Victor took out his phone.
"No."
He dialed Sadi.
"But someone upstairs has spent her life remembering what arrogant men forget."
Sadi answered.
"I need a code," Victor said.
"For his watch?"
"Yes."
"Try Mara."
Mara turned sharply.
"What?"
Sadi looked at the numbers on the public market clock, then at Mick, then at Declan.
"Men like Vale use things they think nobody alive remembers. Mara is the ghost in their story."
Victor looked at Nathan.
For the first time, the attorney looked truly frightened.
Mara stepped close to Sadi's phone.
"Try 0719," she said.
Victor entered it.
Denied.
Nathan smiled again.
Ninety seconds.
Mara's face tightened.
"Try Delgado. Letters to numbers."
Denied.
Sixty seconds.
Sadi looked at Mick.
"What did Vale call the plan?"
"I don't know."
Mara cocked the revolver.
"He said it once," Declan blurted. "Blue Mercy. He called it Blue Mercy."
Sadi's mind flashed to Caldwell's blue bird cufflink. Hospital grants. Children's wards. Charity masks.
"262563729," Sam's weak voice said through Sadi's other phone.
Everyone turned.
He was on video from the safe house sofa.
"Blue Mercy on a phone keypad. Try it."
Victor entered the numbers.
The watch blinked red.
Then went black.
Nathan stopped laughing.
Above the tunnel, Sadi closed her eyes.
For one second, nobody spoke.
Then Victor's voice came through the phone, low and raw.
"Tell your brother he just saved half the city."
Sadi turned toward Sam's pale face on the screen.
Sam managed a tired smile.
"Do I get better hospital food now?"
Sadi laughed so hard she cried.
May you like
But the relief lasted only until Victor found the final file on Nathan's watch.
It was labeled with Sadi's name.
