"I came here," Hank continued, "because for six months, the local cops told my daughter they couldn't find the driver who ran down her husband and left him to die in a ditch. They said there were no leads. But it turns out, the leads weren't missing. They were just too expensive for a local detective to investigate. So my club did the investigating for them."
Richard Sterling stared at the piece of silver metal in the plastic bag. For the first time all evening, the arrogant billionaire looked physically ill. He glanced at his daughter, then back at Hank.
"This is extortion," Richard declared, though his voice lacked its previous boom. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a sleek leather checkbook. "Listen to me, whatever you think you know, you are dealing with things far above your comprehension. Let's be reasonable. Name your price. Right now. Whatever the amount, I will write it, you walk out that door, and this never happened."
My father didn't even look at the checkbook. He looked right through Richard, straight into Victoria's eyes.
The atmosphere in the room shifted entirely. I realized then that my father hadn't missed my calls because he was fishing or at a rally. He hadn't just stumbled in here by accident. The Iron Hounds had infiltrated this high-society stronghold with military precision. They had known Victoria would be here. They had planned this.
And they had known exactly who Victoria was protecting.
Victoria was backing away, her eyes darting around the room looking for an exit, her chest heaving in full panic mode. She hugged the diamond bag to her stomach so tightly her arms shook.
"You're crazy," Victoria choked out, pointing a trembling finger at Hank. "You're all crazy! I don't know what that piece of garbage is!"
Hank ignored her denial. He stepped squarely into the center of the room, unbothered by the billionaires and the bodyguards.
"Tell my daughter," Hank demanded softly, his words echoing off the crystal chandeliers. "Tell my daughter what you were doing on Route 9 on the night of November 12th."
November 12th.
The date slammed into my chest like a sledgehammer, knocking the remaining breath from my lungs. The room around me seemed to spin, the glittering lights of the chandelier blurring into cold, sharp streaks. Big John tightened his massive grip on my arm, keeping me anchored to the floor as the shock wave washed over me.
That was the night the police officer stood on my porch in the pouring rain, holding his soaked hat in his hands. That was the night my future ended.
I looked at Victoria Sterling. The young woman who had just struck me, the woman who possessed more money than I could earn in ten lifetimes, the woman who had demanded my firing without a second thought. Her flawless makeup was beginning to crack under the sweat of pure terror. She wasn't angry anymore. She looked like a cornered animal.
"I... I wasn't anywhere near there!" Victoria shrieked, her voice cracking. "I was in Aspen! My whole family knows I was in Aspen for a ski trip! This is a shakedown!"
"Aspen," Hank repeated, his tone conversational, though the deadly edge remained. He reached into his leather cut again and pulled out a stack of glossy photographs, throwing them down onto the table next to the evidence bag.
"That's a beautiful story," Hank said. "Your father paid a lot of good people to back up that story. But a man who rides with my club runs a discreet auto body shop three towns over. A shop that doesn't ask questions when rich folks need things fixed off the books. Things like a shattered headlight and a bloodstained right fender on a custom silver Porsche."
My eyes widened. The shoddy repair job in the valet lot. I had seen it with my own eyes tonight.
"Your father paid him fifty thousand dollars in cash to fix it overnight and keep his mouth shut," Hank continued, his voice rising, filling the space with the undeniable weight of the truth. "But my brother didn't realize what he was fixing until the news hit the papers two days later. He came to me. We've been watching you ever since, Victoria. Watching you spend money. Watching you drink. Watching you drive that same car like nothing ever happened."
Victoria was hyperventilating, her back pressed against the wood-paneled wall of the dining room. She looked to her father, silently begging him to fix this.