Chapter 9 - Cleaning House
The return to Chicago was swift, but the work wasn't finished. The Mercer empire needed to be purged.
When they arrived at Ironwood Mansion, the morning sun was breaking through the clouds, casting a golden light over the estate. Lydia was taken straight to the medical wing Gideon had established inside the house, where a trusted family doctor evaluated her. She was malnourished and exhausted, but otherwise unharmed.
Gideon stood in the basement, looking through the reinforced glass at his brother Nolan. Nolan was sitting on the floor, his head in his hands.
Gideon opened the door and walked inside.
Nolan looked up, his eyes widening as he saw the absolute finality in his brother’s expression. “Gideon... please. What happened? Is Silas...?”
“Silas is alive, but he will spend the rest of his life in a federal maximum-security prison,” Gideon said, his voice flat. “I turned over all the ledgers from his vault to the FBI. The human trafficking ring, the smuggling operations, the political bribes—it’s all going to the Department of Justice.”
Nolan gasped. “You ruined us! You destroyed the family business!”
“I saved my family,” Gideon corrected. “The legitimate side of the business—the real estate, the clean shipping—will be restructured under a trust for Clara. As for you, Nolan...”
Gideon tossed a one-way ticket to a remote island in the South Pacific onto the floor, along with a passport under a new name.
“You leave today,” Gideon said. “If you ever return to the United States, if you ever use the name Mercer again, or if you ever come within a thousand miles of my wife and daughter, I won't lock you up. I will bury you. Do you understand?”
Nolan looked at the ticket, then at the brother he had betrayed. He nodded slowly, tears of shame filling his eyes. “I’m sorry, Gideon.”
“Goodbye, Nolan.”
May you like
Gideon walked out of the basement, leaving the old world behind him. He walked up the stairs, past the marble staircase where Lydia’s portrait hung. He stopped, looking up at her painted face.
He reached up and removed the white cloths covering the mirrors in the hallway. The darkness was officially over.
