Alton swallows. His breathing is uneven now.
“But you wanted more, a faster route with less oversight.”
“We talked,” Alton says hoarsely. “That’s all it was. Talks.”
“You tried to buy him,” I reply. “You tried to pressure him. When that didn’t work, you assumed he’d eventually look the other way. He didn’t.”
Colin shifts, the chair scraping faintly. “He wasn’t clean,” he snaps. “Don’t pretend he was. Stone Intermodal didn’t ask too many questions when the money cleared.”
My gaze shifts to him.
“Don’t you fucking tell me who my father was,” I say. “He drew his line and you didn’t like where it landed. End of story.”
Alton coughs, wet and ugly. “We didn’t kill him.”
I straighten slightly, resting my hands on the back of his chair.
“Your men were stationed at this warehouse the night he was taken,” I say. “Your shipments tripled within forty-eight hours of his death, moving through a channel you were explicitly denied. You expect me to believe those two facts aren’t connected?”
Silence answers me.
Colin jerks forward. “We didn’t give the order,” he blurts. “We didn’t?—”
“You set the conditions,” I cut in, turning just enough that he knows I’m including him. “You created urgency. You created incentive. You created a problem someone solved for you.”
Alton’s head drops. Not in guilt, but in calculation that’s run out of room.
“You thought this would look like chaos,” I continue. “A grieving company, leadership in flux. Two families distracted by old grudges while you ran freight through a gap you didn’t earn.”
I step back, giving him space. I don’t rush. This isn’t emotional. This is accounting.
“You misjudged one thing,” I say. “You assumed I’d treat my father’s death like a loss I could write off.”
I move behind him. He stiffens when my hand settles at his shoulder. His body reacts even when his voice can’t.
“This ends because you made it necessary,” I say quietly. “Not because I need you to suffer, but because you proved greed and access were more important to you than human life. Now you will lose yours.”
I draw the blade and drive it in once, precise and controlled, exactly where it needs to go. There’s resistance. Then there isn’t.
Alton’s body jerks, then slumps forward, weight pulling against the restraints until gravity finishes the job.
The room goes very still.
Colin’s breathing fractures. “Please,” he says. “We’ve coexisted for years. We could have fixed this. We could have talked.”
I turn toward him.
“You don’t get to negotiate after you decide someone else’s life is expendable,” I say. “That window closed the moment you benefited from his death.”
He shakes his head, eyes wide. “I didn’t touch him.”
I draw the Sig and raise it.
“You didn’t stop it,” I say.
The shot is clean. Controlled. Over before his body has time to react.
When the sound fades, the room settles back into silence.
