The Unrivaled Heir

Chapter 5

"I'm not walking in to die," Marcus said, his voice flat as cold steel.

"I'm walking in to collect a debt."

Clara stared at him, looking for any trace of fear in his dark eyes.

She found none.

"You're crazy," Clara whispered, her knuckles turning white against her leather purse.

"My brother doesn't negotiate with people like you."

"He buries them."

"Then get out of my way," Marcus said, stepping past her toward the glass exit doors of the hospital.

Clara stood frozen, listening to the rain slam against the outer windows.

"Marcus, wait!" she called out, running three quick steps to catch his sleeve.

"My car is parked in the doctors' bay."

"If you walk through those hotel doors alone, they'll shoot you before you reach the front desk."

"If they shoot you, they'll have to shoot me first."

Marcus looked down at her hand on his torn grey jacket, then nodded once.

They ran through the downpour toward a silver Mercedes parked beneath the streetlights.

Marcus slid into the passenger seat, the leather upholstery hissing under his soaked trousers.

Clara hit the push-to-start button, the engine purring as she whipped out of the bay.

They tore onto the deserted city streets, the wipers slapping rhythmically against the windshield.

Marcus's cracked phone buzzed hard against his ribs.

He pulled it out and pressed the speaker icon.

Raymond Croft's voice burst into the quiet car, breathless and fast.

"Marcus, listen to me carefully," Croft said over the line.

"I just reviewed the county registry logs from my office."

"That contract Cecile is trying to sign at six o'clock is complete trash."

Marcus stared straight through the dark windshield, saying nothing.

"The founding deed locked the ancestral estate twenty-five years ago," Croft continued, paper rustling behind his words.

"The title can't legally move an inch without your hand on it."

"Ethan Larson's lawyers think Cecile holds power of attorney, but she holds air."

"If Ethan signs that default execution, he's cancelling her thirty-million-dollar debt for a worthless piece of paper."

Marcus looked out at the dark pavement rushing under the tires.

"Then let him sign," Marcus said.

"Marcus, are you insane?" Croft shouted through the phone.

"Ethan Larson will s*******r your entire bloodline when he finds out he was handed an empty box!"

"He won't come after me," Marcus said, his voice chilling the inside of the car.

"He'll go after the woman who sold him nothing."

Marcus ended the call.

Clara glanced sideways at him, her hands trembling against the wheel.

"What did he mean, an empty box?" Clara asked.

Marcus did not answer.

He leaned his head back against the headrest, watching the streetlights blur past in the rain.

Five minutes later, the silver Mercedes screeched to a halt across the street from the Grand Horizon Hotel.

The sixty-story tower loomed into the gray morning fog like a black monolith.

Beneath the towering glass awning, twenty private security enforcers stood in formation, wearing black tactical coats with visible shoulder holsters.

Marcus kicked his door open into the freezing drizzle.

"Marcus, wait for me," Clara said, killing the engine and running around the hood to his side.

They walked together across the wet pavement toward the revolving glass doors.

Standing in the center of the polished marble lobby was Julian Vance.

Julian had changed into a sharp charcoal suit, holding a lit cigarette, laughing with two armed guards.

He turned his head as the doors hissed open, and the smile on his face curdled into pure venom.

"Well, look what crawled in from the gutter," Julian sneered, taking a slow drag from his cigarette.

"Did you bring Clara to wipe your tears before my boss breaks your legs, delivery boy?"

The guards on either side shifted their hands toward their holstered firearms.

Marcus did not slow his stride.

He did not look at the guns, or at Julian's face.

Marcus walked straight down the center of the lobby, his heavy work boots squeaking against the pristine Italian tile.

Julian stepped forward to block his path, blowing a cloud of gray smoke straight toward Marcus's eyes.

"I'm talking to you, trash—"

Marcus didn't stop.

His shoulder drove hard into Julian's chest, knocking the breath out of his cousin's lungs.

Julian stumbled backward with a strangled gasp, the lit cigarette flying from his fingers and rolling across the marble floor.

"Shoot the bastard!" Julian yelled, grabbing his bruised shoulder.

Two enforcers drew their tactical pistols, stepping into Marcus's path.

Clara threw herself directly in front of the gun barrels, her face flushed with fury.

"Put those weapons away!" Clara yelled, her voice echoing off the high lobby ceiling.

"Do you know who pays your company's payroll every month?"

"Touch him, and my father will bury both of you in the harbor before noon!"

The two guards hesitated, their eyes darting nervously between Clara and Julian.

Marcus didn't wait to watch the argument.

He stepped inside the private brass elevator, Clara sliding through the doors right behind him.

Marcus pressed the gold button for the sixtieth floor.

The doors slid shut, cutting off Julian's shrill screams of rage in the lobby.

The elevator climbed silently, the digital floor indicator ticking upward in the quiet cab.

Clara stood beside him, her chest heaving, staring at the numbers flashing on the wall.

"My brother is not Julian, Marcus," Clara whispered, her voice tight with real fear.

"Ethan was running extortion rings in the southern docks when he was nineteen."

"He doesn't bluff."

Marcus looked at his reflection in the brass elevator doors.

His grey windbreaker was stained with wine and dried blood, his boots covered in street grit.

He felt the phone against his ribs, holding nine million dollars of anonymous bait that had painted a target on his back.

He said nothing.

DING.

The elevator chime rang with a crisp, hollow tone.

The doors slid open onto the penthouse suite.

The room was vast, lined with glass overlooking the wet roofs of Halden City under the pale dawn light.

A thick, plush white wool carpet stretched across the entire floor, spotless and expensive.

Sitting at a low mahogany conference table was Aunt Cecile.

Her emerald gown from the banquet was crumpled, her mascara smeared beneath bloodshot eyes.

She leaned forward, staring at a document with desperate hunger.

She was waiting for the signed release that would erase the thirty-million-dollar debt around her neck.

Sitting across from her was Ethan Larson.

Ethan was thirty-four, broad-shouldered, wearing a bespoke three-piece charcoal suit without a single wrinkle.

The knuckles of his right hand were thick with pale scar tissue, resting flat on the table beside a crystal ashtray.

Between them lay the deed execution document, typed on heavy cream parchment.

Ethan held a solid gold fountain pen between his scarred fingers.

The nib hovered a quarter-inch above the blank signature line.

The grandfather clock in the corner began to chime six hollow notes for dawn.

Marcus stepped out of the elevator, Clara half a pace behind him.

His mud-stained boots came down on the pure white wool carpet, leaving two black tracks.

Cecile gasped, her head snapping up, her hand knocking her water glass onto the floor.

"Marcus?!" she shrieked, her voice cracking. "How did you get up here?!"

Ethan Larson did not flinch, and he did not turn his head.

"Clara," Ethan said, his voice flat as stagnant water. "You're late for breakfast."

The sixth chime of the clock faded into the silence of the room.

Ethan lowered the gold nib, dragging a thick stroke of black ink across the signature line.

He set the pen down against the mahogany wood and slowly lifted his eyes to Marcus.

"And who let the stray dog off its leash?"