Chapter 11 - The Hidden Shooter
Silvio dropped behind a mooring post.
Grant pulled Ethan and Mia toward the dockhouse.
A second shot struck the railing.
Silvio looked toward the marina roof.
Someone else was shooting.
Not Grant.
Grant looked equally surprised.
“Move!”
He dragged the children inside.
Silvio crawled toward Dean.
Blood spread across Dean’s shoulder.
He was alive.
“Shooter on the east roof.”
Dean gritted his teeth.
“I saw the flash.”
Silvio’s security men moved into position.
Another shot shattered a dock light.
Then Lucinda’s voice screamed from the parking area.
“Silvio!”
He looked back.
A man had her by the arm.
Former Judge Harold Voss.
The same man named in the emergency guardianship petition.
Only now he was holding a gun.
Silvio finally understood the missing piece.
Voss had not merely been a friendly judge.
He was part of it.
Lucinda stared at him in disbelief.
“Harold?”
Voss shoved her toward the dockhouse.
“Inside.”
Lucinda resisted.
“You said you were helping us.”
“I helped Grant.”
Voss smiled without warmth.
“You were useful.”
Silvio watched from behind cover.
Grant emerged from the dockhouse doorway.
He looked furious.
“What are you doing here?”
Voss laughed.
“Cleaning up your mess.”
Grant stared at him.
“You sent the shooter?”
“I sent someone who follows instructions.”
Grant’s face changed.
This was the first time Silvio saw fear in him.
Voss had been above Grant all along.
Grant lowered his pistol slightly.
“You told me we were partners.”
“We were.”
“Until?”
“Until you failed to kill two children in a parked vehicle.”
Mia began crying.
Silvio’s anger became almost unbearable.
Voss pushed Lucinda inside the dockhouse.
Grant followed with the children.
The shooter remained somewhere above.
Silvio looked at Dean.
“Can you move?”
Dean nodded weakly.
“Go.”
Silvio handed him to two security men.
Then he circled beneath the pier.
The old dockhouse had a maintenance entrance accessible from the waterline.
Silvio knew because he and Mateo had used it as teenagers to sneak into their father’s office.
He climbed beneath the structure.
Rainwater ran into his eyes.
Inside, voices carried through the floorboards.
Voss.
Grant.
Lucinda.
Ethan.
Mia.
Silvio pulled himself through the maintenance hatch.
He emerged inside a storage closet.
Through a crack in the door, he could see Grant holding the children.
Voss stood across from him.
“You’re going to give me the key.”
Grant shook his head.
“The key stays with me.”
Voss sighed.
“You still think you have leverage.”
“I know where the accounts are.”
“So do I.”
Grant’s expression changed.
Voss smiled.
“I created half of them.”
Lucinda looked at him.
“You?”
Voss turned toward her.
“Your husband was talented at greed.”
“He was terrible at architecture.”
Silvio quietly opened the closet door.
Voss continued.
“Your father’s hotel group moved billions.”
“Grant saw a chance to skim millions.”
“I saw a chance to control the people skimming them.”
Lucinda looked sick.
“You blackmailed Father too.”
Voss nodded.
“The video of Silvio was mine.”
Silvio went still.
Grant looked surprised.
“You told me Dean made it.”
Voss laughed.
“Dean could barely operate editing software.”
Silvio now knew exactly who had controlled Arturo.
Who had protected Grant.
Who had buried Mateo’s murder.
Judge Harold Voss.
Voss lifted his gun.
“We’re done talking.”
He aimed at Grant.
May you like
Lucinda screamed.
And Silvio stepped out of the darkness.
