Free Web NovelChapter 161: Chapter One Hundred-Sixty-One: The Monster
//CLARA//
"H—how? You—you’re dead."
My voice was a hollow croak.
The matted head stayed tilted back, filmed-over eyes staring through the lantern beam.
The grin on his face didn’t falter. Just stretched wider, cracking the scab until fresh blood ran down his chin.
"Do I... look dead to you?"
Every syllable sounded like he was dragging a rusted nail across a chalkboard.
"I saw the blood."
My mind was spinning backward, digging through the fog, the deafening roar of Casimir’s pistol, the heavy thud of a body hitting the deck of the carriage.
"You were shot."
Silas let out a sound that might have been a laugh, but it degenerated instantly into a wet, violent coughing fit. He spat a thick glob of crimson onto the straw at his feet, panting heavily as his head sagged forward.
"The great Casimir Guggenheim... never misses. He put the ball... exactly where he wanted it. Right through the meat of my shoulder. Clean. Avoided the artery."
I shook my head.
"No. You’re a hallucination. I’ve been awake for six hours reading this stupid ledger. My brain has officially evaporated."
"Touch me then," Silas taunted, dragging his heels against the floor, the ankle irons groaned.
"Come on, Eleanor. Step across the circle. Feel the skin. It’s cold... but there’s a pulse. Go on. Ask your uncle... why he keeps his trophies in the dark."
"Shut up," I snapped.
I took a step back, keeping the light pinned squarely on his face.
"Why?"
"A dead man... can’t talk."
He leaned his head back against the brick, his eyes rolling up toward the dark ceiling.
"A dead man... doesn’t know which aldermen... took the bribes for the north-side rail expansion. A dead man... can’t tell him where...they hid the duplicate certificates."
The pieces from the desk outside started to clatter around in my head, but they still weren’t fitting.
"The duplicate certificates?"
"He’s picking my brain apart," Silas rasped, his cracked lips twitching into a hideous imitation of a smirk. "Piece by piece. A finger for a name. A day without water... for a safe combination. He doesn’t waste assets. He told me... I was far more useful to him... breathing."
"You’re lying."
I refused to believe it, though the logic was tracking so perfectly it made my stomach curdle.
Casimir didn’t do anything out of simple passion or rage. Everything was an equation. Even mercy. Especially mercy.
"You tried to kill me. Why would he leave you alive in a warehouse three miles from the mansion?"
"Because no one looks for a ghost," Silas said, his eyes snapping back to mine, suddenly wide and manic. "The syndicate think I’m dead."
"The ledger," I repeated, my breath hitching. "His name is on the last page. Alone. No data. No dates."
"Because he’s the end of it," he hissed, leaning forward as far as the chains would allow, the iron links taut and humming with tension. "He isn’t in the ledger because he owes them. He’s in the ledger because he’s writing it. He’s clearing the board, Eleanor. One name at a time."
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The sound vibrated through the floorboards before the echo even hit my ears.
A second later, the distinct sound of an iron deadbolt sliding into place. Click.
Locked from the outside.
"Oh, God."
"He’s here," Silas croaked, his eyes widening. The cocky, malicious smirk on his face vanished. "The master... is home."
"Shut up!" I hissed, my brain going into full-blown, red-alert panic. "Don’t make a sound."
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Footsteps began to march down the central aisle. They were that terrifyingly familiar cadence that I’d listened to a hundred times coming down the corridors of the mansion.
I didn’t think. I reacted. I blew into the top of the lantern, killing the flame instantly. The alcove plunged into a pitch-black.
"Eleanor..."
"If you breathe, I will personally strangle you with those chains," I whispered fiercely, my hands trembling as I scrambled backward, feeling the rough wood of a massive shipping crate behind me.
I wedged myself into the narrow, six-inch gap between the crate and the damp brick wall, pulling my woolen coat tight against my chest to keep the fabric from rustling. I clamped both hands over my mouth, squeezing my eyes shut as if that could somehow make me invisible.
The footsteps grew louder, accompanied by the swinging amber glow of a lantern.
The light bled into the alcove. I pried my eyes open. Through the small gap between the burlap sacks and the edge of my crate, I could see his silhouette.
Casimir.
He was wearing his charcoal-black overcoat. His dark hair was slightly damp from the freezing mist.
His face was a mask of unyielding stone, entirely detached.
Behind him, the shadows shifted. Two massive, broad-shouldered men in rough wool caps entered the clearance, their boots dragging something heavy between them.
No, not something. Someone.
They were dragging a man by his armpits.
"In the second ring," Casimir said.
His voice lacked the gravelly warmth he used when he spoke to me.
"The bolts are rusted, Mr. Guggenheim," one of the large men muttered.
"Then use the mallet," Casimir replied, not even looking back as he set his lantern down on the scarred desk.
He pulled a pair of dark leather gloves from his pockets and began to methodically draw them over his fingers.
"Secure his wrists first. I don’t want him moving if he regains consciousness before we’re finished."
The two men dragged the mangled body into the alcove adjacent to Silas. I could hear the heavy thump of his flesh hitting the stone floor, and then the horrific, ringing iron strike of a mallet hitting a bolt.
ClANG. CLANG.
Silas didn’t say a word. He had pulled himself as far into his corner as the chains would allow, his chest heaving, staring at Casimir with the wide, unblinking eyes.
Casimir walked over to the edge of the burlap partition, his leather-gloved hands clasped loosely behind his back.
"He’s secure, sir," the bearded man said, stepping back out of the alcove, wiping a streak of dark grease and blood onto his apron.
Casimir gestured slightly with his chin toward the back corner of the warehouse.
"The bucket."
One of the men hurried off into the darkness, his footsteps receding toward the wharf doors before returning a minute later with the sloshing sound of dock water.
"Wake him."
SPLASH.
The sound of the freezing, salted water hitting the man’s face rang out loudly.
Instantly, the mangled body jolted. A violent, choking gasp tore from the man’s throat as he thrashed against the stone, the fresh iron chains on his wrists screaming against the bolts with a loud rattle.
He coughed up a lungful of bloody water, his head twisting wildly as the shock of the freezing temperature forced his system awake.
"God... damn you..."
I froze. The hands clamped over my mouth tightened until my teeth cut into the inside of my lip.
That voice.
"Guggenheim..." the man choked out, lifting his battered, bloody face into the light of the lantern.
Bartholomew Vanderbilt.
"You... you can’t do this," Bartholomew hissed, his teeth red with his own blood as he glared up at the silhouette standing over him. "My father—they’ll know—You fucking bastard."
Casimir didn’t even blink. He just looked down at the multi-millionaire heir to the Vanderbilt industry as if he were nothing more than a broken piece of freight that had arrived late at the platform.
"They know you went to the docks and suddenly disappeared, Mr. Vanderbilt," Casimir said in a terrifyingly calm tone. "They believe you took a private vessel to Canada to escape your creditors. By tomorrow morning, the duplicate certificates will be in my vault, and your father’s signatures will be verified by the state collector."
"You’re a monster," Bartholomew spat, a wet, bloody cough interrupting his words. "A parasite... a back-alley thief..."
Casimir slowly knelt down, bringing his face into the amber light just inches from Bartholomew’s broken nose.
The expression on my husband’s face was entirely blank. Pitch black. A void where a human being should have been.
"You touched my wife."
The lethal hum of his voice made the hairs on my arms stand up in my hiding spot.
"You put Mr. Thurston in her path. You thought to use her to find my leverage."
W—what?
Wait. He was the one backing up Silas?
Casimir reached out, gripping Bartholomew’s chin, forcing to look at him dead in the eye.
"I told you once before, Mr. Vanderbilt," Casimir murmured, the flat ice in his gray eyes shifting into something feral. "Everything you own belongs to me now. Your money. Your names. Your secrets. And you will sit in this dark until I decide which part of you to break next."
My knees began to shake so violently I had to press my back entirely against the frozen brick to keep from falling. I stared through the gap at the man who held me in the hallway, the man whose mouth had bruised mine.
My husband...
I didn’t know him at all.
