Chapter 9 - THE EXECUTION OF JUSTICE
The silence that entered the room was colder than the winter air.
Alessio Corsetti closed his fist around the yellow plastic lighter.
He stood in the shattered doorway of 142 Maple Street.
He was not wearing his overcoat. He wore a dark charcoal three-piece suit, his cuffs secured with silver links, his tie straight, his silver hair unruffled by the wind.
Behind him, framed by the falling snow outside, stood two men in black tactical gear, their submachine guns held at low-ready, their faces completely covered by ballistic masks.
Carter Vance did not have time to stand.
Alessio’s left hand shot out like an iron hook, seizing Carter by the hair, dragging the two-hundred-pound boy off Delaney with a single, violent yank that sent him crashing onto the linoleum floor.
Alessio stepped forward.
His leather dress shoe came down on Carter’s right wrist—the wrist that had held the lighter.
*CRACK.*
Carter didn't even scream; the shock was so instantaneous that his jaw simply dropped open, his body going rigid as his radius and ulna snapped under the heel of Alessio’s boot.
"Marco," Alessio said softly, not looking down.
One of the masked men stepped forward, seized Carter by his jacket collar, and dragged him out the front door into the snow like a sack of wet salt.
Bryce Howerin was huddled against the living room wall, his broken arm cradled against his ribs, his face gray with shock.
He looked at Alessio.
He looked at the two armed men in the doorway.
He looked at the calm, terrifying absence of emotion on the older man’s face.
"Please," Bryce whimpered. He was leaking fluid from his nose, his mouth, his eyes. "My dad... my dad has money in Switzerland. Five million. I know the account numbers. I'll give it to you. I'll give you everything."
Alessio walked slowly across the ruined hallway.
He stopped two feet from Bryce.
He reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a clean white linen handkerchief—identical to the one he had laid on the counter at the Copper Kettle—and knelt down on one knee.
He was at eye level with Bryce.
"Your father," Alessio said, his voice quiet, conversational, "is currently in a holding cell at the federal facility in Hartford. His accounts in Switzerland were frozen forty-five minutes ago by the Department of Justice’s foreign asset unit. You have no money, Bryce."
"I... I didn't mean to," Bryce wept. "We were just scared. We were just trying to scare her—"
"You brought accelerant into a house where a sick child was sleeping," Alessio said.
His voice did not rise. That was what made it monstrous. It had the dreadful, mechanical calm of an executioner reading a statute before pulling the lever.
"You believed that because your father owned the land under this town, you were permitted to treat human beings like refuse. You believed that because this girl was quiet, she was helpless."
Alessio reached out.
With an agonizingly slow movement, he unfolded the white handkerchief and gently, thoroughly, wiped the wet snot and blood from Bryce’s lip.
"I spent thirty years building an empire, Bryce," Alessio whispered. "Do you know what keeps an empire standing?"
Bryce shook his head, his teeth clicking together in terror.
"Debts," Alessio said. "When a man does not pay his debts, the structure collapses. Ten years ago, Delaney Shaw gave me my life. That makes her life mine to protect."
Alessio stood up.
He folded the soiled handkerchief and dropped it onto Bryce’s lap.
"Take him to the state barracks in Litchfield," Alessio commanded the second armed man. "Deliver him directly to Investigator Ross. Present the security footage from the cruiser outside, along with the gas canister and the tire iron. Tell Ross that if this boy is granted bail before his arraignment on attempted murder and arson charges, I will consider it an act of personal hostility from his department."
The masked man stepped forward, hoisted Bryce by the collar with one hand, and dragged him out into the night.
The front door was empty now.
The wind blew through the broken frame, swirling a thin dusting of snow across the wet carpet.
Alessio turned.
Delaney was still on her knees at the base of the stairs.
Her face was smeared with carbon and sweat, her hair wild around her shoulders. Her right sleeve had torn completely away during the struggle with Carter, leaving the scarred flesh of her arm completely bare to the cold air.
She was trembling violently.
Alessio did not offer a hand to help her up. He knew better. He knew that pride was the only thing that had kept this girl alive for ten years, and to treat her like a victim would be the final insult.
Instead, he took off his charcoal suit jacket, stepped forward, and draped it over her shoulders.
The wool was warm. It smelled of cedar and fine tobacco.
"The air is cold tonight, Miss Shaw," Alessio said softly.
Delaney looked down at the dark fabric of his jacket.
She looked at her bare arm—the silver, puckered skin that she had hidden from every human being in Halver for six years.
She didn't pull the fabric over it.
She let the air touch it.
"Is it over?" she whispered.
"It is over," Alessio replied.
From the top of the stairs came the soft, hesitant sound of stocking feet on bare wood.
"Laney?"
Juny was standing on the landing, clutching her porcelain rabbit to her chest, her dark eyes wide behind her glasses. She looked at the broken door, looked at the broken glass, and then looked at the tall, silver-haired man standing in their ruined hallway.
"Are you the doctor?" Juny asked.
Alessio looked up at the little girl.
For the first time since Delaney had known him, the cold, unyielding granite of his face shifted. A small, faint smile touched the corners of his mouth.
May you like
"No, Juniper," Alessio Corsetti said, his voice gentler than Delaney could have ever imagined it could be. "I am simply an old friend of your sister’s. And your ride to New York has just arrived."
***
