Chapter 10 - The Price of Maria
Paul gave Vincent ninety minutes.
No police.
No soldiers.
No copies of the archive.
Bring the primary access drive to the abandoned Lakeshore Theater, or Maria would die on a live broadcast sent to every news station in Chicago.
Tony wanted to attack.
Elena wanted to copy the files first.
Gabriel, barely conscious on a medical stretcher, wanted Vincent to let Maria die.
The words stunned everyone.
Vincent moved toward him slowly.
“Say that again.”
Gabriel fought to sit upright.
“If you give Paul the archive, he wins. Thousands of people remain under the Covenant. More families die.”
“Maria is our family.”
“And what about everyone else’s?”
Vincent grabbed the rail of the stretcher.
“You took her from me for thirty years. You do not get to ask me to sacrifice her now.”
Gabriel’s eyes filled with shame.
“I’m asking because I know what it means.”
“No. You know how to disappear when someone else pays the cost.”
Elena stepped between them.
“We don’t have time.”
Tony had discovered that the archive contained a release protocol. If activated, the records would be sent simultaneously to federal investigators, international journalists and multiple courts.
But the upload required forty minutes.
Paul’s deadline allowed ninety.
“We start the release,” Elena said. “Vincent goes to the theater with a decoy drive. We locate Maria during the exchange.”
“And if Paul checks the drive?” Tony asked.
“He will.”
“Then we need enough authentic data to convince him.”
Elena copied a portion of the archive onto a secure device.
Vincent left for the theater with Tony.
The Lakeshore had been abandoned since a fire killed six people in 1988. Its marquee hung crooked above shattered glass doors. Inside, dust covered rows of seats, and the stage curtains had faded from red to brown.
Maria sat beneath a spotlight at center stage.
Her wrists were tied.
Paul stood beside her.
He looked almost ordinary in a navy suit, one arm still bandaged from Tony’s bullet at the Golden Palm.
“Vincent,” he called. “You came alone?”
“Mostly.”
Paul smiled.
Tony remained hidden in the projection booth.
Covenant gunmen occupied the balconies and backstage corridors.
Vincent walked down the aisle carrying the drive.
“Let her go.”
“First, the archive.”
“You have spent thirty years teaching me not to trust you.”
“And yet you trusted me with every legal document you ever signed.”
“That mistake ends tonight.”
Paul pressed a gun against Maria’s head.
Vincent stopped.
“Set the drive on the stage.”
Vincent obeyed.
Paul kicked it toward a technician, who connected it to a laptop.
Real account names filled the screen.
Judges.
Officers.
Business owners.
Paul’s smile widened.
“You have no idea what you’re holding,” he said. “This is not evidence. This is ownership. Every name is a person who will obey rather than be exposed.”
“That is the difference between us,” Vincent said.
“We are not different.”
“You turn fear into chains.”
“And you turned it into a kingdom.”
Paul was right enough to hurt.
Maria looked at Vincent.
“Do not give him another life.”
Paul struck her across the face.
Vincent’s hand moved toward his gun.
Red laser sights covered his chest.
Paul crouched beside Maria.
“Tell him what you learned while you were away.”
Maria lifted her head.
“That he never stopped looking for me.”
Paul’s expression tightened.
“And what else?”
“That men like you survive because people like us confuse shame with silence.”
She drove the heel of her shoe into Paul’s injured shoulder.
He screamed.
The theater erupted.
Vincent fired toward the nearest balcony. Tony shot the spotlight, plunging the stage into darkness. Maria rolled behind a speaker as bullets tore through the curtains.
Vincent reached the stage.
Paul had vanished backstage.
Tony fought his way down from the projection room while Vincent cut Maria’s wrists.
“Can you run?”
“I have been running for thirty years.”
“Not anymore.”
They moved toward the side exit.
Paul appeared above them on the rigging platform.
He aimed at Maria.
Vincent stepped in front of her.
The gun fired.
Pain tore through Vincent’s side.
He fell.
Maria caught him.
Paul descended the stairs slowly, his pistol steady.
“You could have ruled the entire country with me,” he said.
Vincent pressed one hand against the blood spreading across his shirt.
“I never wanted the country.”
“No. Only Chicago.”
“Tonight, I’m willing to lose that too.”
Paul’s phone began vibrating.
Then every gunman’s phone vibrated.
News alerts appeared across their screens.
CONFIDENTIAL COVENANT FILES RELEASED.
The archive upload had completed.
Paul stared at his phone.
His empire of secrets was becoming public.
Judges’ names.
Bank transfers.
Recorded murder orders.
Photographs.
Everything.
“You destroyed us,” Paul whispered.
Vincent looked up from the floor.
“No.”
Sirens surrounded the theater.
“You built something that could only survive in darkness.”
Paul raised the gun toward Vincent’s head.
Maria moved first.
She grabbed the fallen drive and struck Paul’s wounded shoulder. His gun fired into the ceiling.
Tony reached the stage and shot him in the leg.
Paul collapsed.
Vincent expected Maria to step away.
Instead, she picked up Paul’s gun and aimed it at his heart.
Thirty years of stolen life trembled in her hands.
Paul smiled.
“Do it. Prove you belong to him.”
Maria stared at Vincent.
Then she lowered the weapon.
“No,” she said. “We prove we survived you.”
Police flooded the theater.
But as officers dragged Paul away, he looked toward Vincent and smiled again.
“You think I’m the Covenant?”
May you like
His voice was almost amused.
“I’m only the accountant.”
