Chapter 5 - The Shadow of the Past
"Let me through! I have business with Miss Bennett!" Grant’s shrill, arrogant voice carried clearly through the glass. "Do you have any idea who my father is? He sits on the municipal port authority board! You touch me again, and I’ll have the police seize this entire block!"
Dominic had one hand resting on the grip of his concealed firearm, his face a portrait of bored amusement. "Sir, you have three seconds to turn around and walk back to your car, or I will introduce your nose to the back of your skull."
"Clare!" Grant shouted, catching sight of her silhouette through the tall studio mirrors. "Clare, tell these thugs to step aside!"
Clare stepped forward, her heart hammering against her ribs, but Marcus’s hand caught her forearm, halting her in the middle of the dance floor.
"You don't have to face him," Marcus said softly, his eyes scanning the street outside for any sign of a trap. "Say the word, and Dominic will remove him from this city by noon. He will never cross your path again."
Clare looked at Marcus, then through the window at Grant.
Grant Mercer looked exactly as he had eight months ago: perfectly coiffed blonde hair, immaculate posture, an expression of eternal, petulant grievance. For five years, that face had dictated her mood, her confidence, her entire sense of self-worth. If he frowned, she spent hours wondering what she had done wrong. If he sighed, she shrank into herself.
Now, standing beside Marcus Vale—a man who commanded empires with a whisper—Grant looked laughably, pathetically small.
"No," Clare said, pulling her arm gently from Marcus’s grasp. "I want to speak to him."
Marcus studied her for a moment, then gave a single, tight nod. "Dominic. Let him in. But search him first."
"I am not letting some street thug pat me down—" Grant began outside, but Dominic’s hands were already moving with brutal efficiency, spinning Grant against the brick wall and frisking him in three seconds flat.
"Clear," Dominic said, opening the door and shoving Grant into the studio.
Grant stumbled, regaining his balance with an outraged snort, smoothing his coat. "This is outrageous! I am an attorney! I will sue this entire establishment into oblivion—"
His tirade died in his throat as his eyes landed on Marcus Vale.
Marcus hadn't moved. He stood in the center of the dance floor, beneath the soft light of the chandelier, his hands loosely clasped in front of him. He didn't speak. He didn't sneer. He simply stood there, an apex predator watching an insolent stray dog wander into his territory.
Grant’s face drained of color. The arrogant sneer collapsed into a look of sheer, unadulterated terror. "V-Vale... Mr. Vale."
"Mercer," Marcus said, his tone conversational, almost polite. "Your father’s firm handles the municipal filings for the eastern shipping lanes, if I recall correctly. A quiet man. Unremarkable. But he understands how to keep his mouth shut. It appears the trait is not hereditary."
Grant swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. He turned his eyes toward Clare, desperate for an ally. "Clare... what are you doing with this man? Do you have any idea who he is? The entire city is talking! Vance’s people came to my office this morning asking questions about you!"
A cold spike of adrenaline shot through Clare. "Vance came to your office? Why would Vance care about you?"
Grant shifted his weight, his eyes darting between Marcus and the two armed guards at the doors. "I... I do corporate consulting for Vance’s logistics firm. Just paperwork! Zoning permits for the south docks! But when they saw you with Vale at the gala last night, they wanted to know your routine. They wanted your schedule, Clare!"
Clare felt the blood drain from her face. "You told them?"
"I had to!" Grant cried, his voice pitching high with panic. "You think I’m going to take a bullet for you? After you walked out on me? They threatened my license! They threatened my father’s seat on the board!"
"You son of a bitch," Clare whispered, the shock giving way to a venomous, disgusted clarity. "You gave them my studio schedule. You told them where I’d be."
"I told them you were here on Thursday mornings!" Grant shouted defensively, stepping toward her. "How was I supposed to know they’d set fire to the place? You brought this on yourself, Clare! You always had to be the center of attention, playing the independent artist! If you had just stayed with me—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
Marcus moved so fast the eye could barely track it.
One second he was ten feet away; the next, his left hand was wrapped around Grant’s throat, slamming the younger man backward into the wall. The impact rattled the mirrors along the west studio wall. Marcus’s right hand moved beneath his jacket, and the cold steel barrel of his revolver was pressed dead center between Grant Mercer’s terrified, watering eyes.
"Marcus, no!" Clare gasped, taking an instinctive step forward.
"Quiet, Clare," Marcus said, his voice dropping into a chilling, absolute stillness that froze the entire room.
Grant was whimpering, his fingers clutching uselessly at Marcus’s wrist. Marcus didn't even strain. His arm was like a marble pillar pinning Grant to the plaster.
"You have thirty seconds to explain why I shouldn't blow your brains across these floorboards," Marcus whispered into Grant’s ear, the metal of the gun clicking back to full cock. "You sold the woman you claimed to love to a butcher like Lorenzo Vance. You handed him the keys to her sanctuary. Give me one reason, Mercer. Just one."
"P-Please..." Grant sobbed, tears streaming down his pale cheeks, a dark wet stain spreading rapidly across the front of his designer trousers. "Please, Mr. Vale... I didn't know... Vance said he just wanted to talk to her... he promised me—"
"He promised you nothing," Marcus said, his eyes empty, dead, devoid of all humanity. "Because men like Vance do not negotiate with worms."
Marcus slowly turned his head to look at Clare. The gun remained steady against Grant’s skull.
"This is your choice, Clare," Marcus said, his voice calm, giving her the power she had been stripped of for five long years. "He endangered your life. He gave the order that put a bomb in your studio. You say the word, and he never breathes Savannah air again."
Grant let out a muffled, frantic shriek, looking at Clare with bulging, pleading eyes.
Clare stared at the man who had spent half a decade making her feel weak, stupid, and insignificant. He was weeping on the floor of her studio, soaked in his own urine, entirely at her mercy.
She felt no triumph. Only a profound, liberating disgust.
"Let him go," Clare said, her voice clear and completely steady.
Marcus arched a silver brow. "Clare—"
"Let him go, Marcus," she repeated, walking up until she was standing right beside them. She looked down at Grant with utter pity. "Killing him makes him important. He isn't important. He’s nothing."
Marcus held her gaze for three long heartbeats. A slow, dark satisfaction curled the corner of his lips.
"As you wish," Marcus murmured.
He dropped Grant like a sack of wet flour onto the polished floor. Grant curled into a ball, coughing violently, gasping for air.
"Dominic," Marcus said, wiping his hands with a clean linen handkerchief from his pocket. "Escort Mr. Mercer to his father’s office. Inform his father that the Mercer firm has one hour to forfeit all municipal contracts with the city and liquidate their riverfront assets. If Grant Mercer is within the city limits of Savannah by sundown, put him in the marsh."
"Understood, boss," Dominic grinned, hauling Grant up by the collar of his trench coat and dragging him out the door like a bag of trash.
The front door slammed shut. The studio fell into an absolute, ringing silence.
Clare stood in the center of the floor, the adrenaline slowly leaving her limbs, leaving her feeling hollowed out, dizzy, and strangely weightless.
"Are you all right?" Marcus asked, turning to face her, his voice devoid of the terrifying malice he had shown Grant.
Clare looked down at the spot where Grant had wept on the floor, then up into the fierce, protective gray eyes of the monster who had just avenged her.
"I spent five years thinking he was a giant," she whispered, a tremulous smile touching her lips. "He was just a shadow on the wall."
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"Most tyrants are, Clare," Marcus said, stepping closer, his hand reaching out to gently cup the nape of her neck, pulling her toward him until her forehead rested against his chest once more. "Now let us go finish the real one."
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