"He knows?" Jax growled. "Then the plan changes. We don't wait until midnight. We burn the diner now, with the old man inside, and we hunt the kid down."
I couldn't wait any longer; the threat to my father was immediate, absolute, and left no room for tactical hesitation.
I kicked the wooden partition door off its rusted hinges, the heavy wood splintering with a deafening crash as I stepped into the main room, my Colt .45 raised and locked onto Jax’s chest.
"Nobody move!" I roared, my voice carrying the absolute authority of a man who had commanded men in the face of death.
The room froze, the pool cues suspended in mid-air, the bikers staring at me in absolute, stunned disbelief as I stood in the doorway, wet with rain and blood.
But my eyes were locked on my uncle, whose face had gone completely white, his gun hand trembling as he stared into the barrel of my weapon.
"Marcus," Raymond whispered, his voice trembling. "Put the gun down. You don't know what you're doing."
"I know exactly what I'm doing, Raymond," I said, my voice cold as ice. "And if anyone makes a move, you're the first one who dies."
The silence in the ruined tannery was so thick I could hear the steady, rhythmic dripping of rainwater from the rusted rafters onto the concrete floor.
Raymond’s hands were raised to his shoulders, his fingers twitching, his eyes darting frantically from me to Jax, who stood completely still behind the wooden table.
"Marcus, please," Raymond stammered, his voice cracking as he tried to find the authoritative tone of a sheriff and failing miserably. "You're a veteran. You're a good kid. Don't throw your life away for a crazy old man's delusions."
"My father isn't crazy, Raymond," I said, my grip on the Colt .45 steady, my sights aligned perfectly with the center of my uncle's chest. "But you are. You sold out this town, you sold out your family, and you sold out the memory of my brother for fifty thousand dollars a month."
Jax let out a low, dry chuckle, his hand slowly drifting down toward his belt, his eyes never leaving mine.
"You think you're the only one who knows how to use a gun, soldier boy?" Jax sneered, his voice dripping with a greasy, unbothered confidence. "Look around you. You're outnumbered ten to one. You might get the Sheriff, but you won't make it to the door."
"I don't need to make it to the door," I replied, my voice dropping to that flat, lethal register that made several of the bikers in the back row take a step back. "I just need to make sure you go down first."
"Marcus, listen to me!" Raymond pleaded, his face slick with sweat. "The Silver Star... it’s not what you think. Arthur didn't hide a ledger. He hid the original environmental impact report from thirty years ago, before the quarry was even closed. It proves the soil was already contaminated with mercury from the old chemical plant. If that report gets out, the state shuts down the entire valley. The land becomes worthless. Oakhaven dies anyway."
"And that makes it okay to dump toxic waste there now?" I asked, a wave of disgust washing over me. "To poison the water table? To let the people in this town get sick so you can buy up their land cheap when they have to sell?"
"It was a business decision!" Raymond cried out, his desperation finally breaking through his mask of denial. "The town was already dying, Marcus! The mills closed, the shops were boarded up. I was trying to bring money in! Apex was going to build a logistics center once the quarry was capped. We just needed to clear the books first."
"By killing my father?" I asked, my thumb slowly pulling back the hammer of the Colt, the metallic click sounding like a crack of thunder in the quiet room.
"No! No one was supposed to get hurt!" Raymond yelled, turning his head toward Jax. "Jax, tell him! We just wanted the key!"
"The key," I muttered, my mind racing as I reevaluated the clues. "The key to the safe-deposit box at the Oakhaven First National."
"The silver cross," Jax said, his sneer returning as he picked up the medal from the table, holding it up by its red, white, and blue ribbon. "Your old man was smart. He had a locksmith weld a small, flat brass key into the double-plated backing of this medal. He knew no one would ever look at a war medal for a key. But he got sloppy. He started talking about it in his sleep at the clinic. One of the nurses is my cousin. She told me the old man was muttering about a silver cross holding the key to Raymond's ruin."