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Chapter 818:
His chief assistant took a hesitant step forward, keeping a safe distance, his voice trembling with poorly concealed terror. “Mr. Compton… the car is ready. Do you need me to contact your physician p>
“Don’t touch me.” Cole’s voice was guttural, barely recognizable. He shoved himself upright, using the doorframe as leverage. His legs buckled, caught, held.
He walked down the hallway like a drunkard, bouncing off the walls and leaving smears of mud and blood on the pristine paint. Junior associates and paralegals pressed themselves against their cubicles, staring with wide, horrified eyes.
The Wall Street Titan. The Midas King. Reduced to this.
Cole reached the elevator bank and punched the button for the garage. When the doors opened, he stumbled inside and leaned against the mirrored wall, watching his own reflection distort and multiply.
Substitute. Defective copy. Walking memorial.
The elevator descended. Cole’s lips moved, shaping the words without sound, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, fingers still stained with ink and blood.
The doors opened onto the garage — cold air, the smell of exhaust. The Maybach waited in its VIP spot, black and gleaming.
Cole fell into the back seat. The leather was still damp from his earlier collapse.
“Sir?” The assistant hovered in the doorway. “Should I take you to the upstate estate? Your grandmother p>
“No.” Cole’s voice was flat, dead. “The Underworld. Lucas’s club p>
𝘈d𝘥𝗂𝘤𝗍𝘪𝗏e 𝗌𝘵o𝘳𝗶e𝘴 𝘰n
“Sir, it’s not even open p>
“Now p>
The assistant closed the door. The engine started. Cole pressed his forehead against the cold window and watched the concrete pillars slide past, each one a marker of his descent.
Above, at street level, June sat in Easton’s Aston Martin. The heater was on low, warming her hands. She watched the city wake up — the gray morning giving way to pale gold — and she smiled.
The Underworld occupied the basement levels of a converted warehouse in Tribeca. At eleven in the morning, the steel security shutters were still down and the velvet ropes unstrung.
The Maybach’s tires squealed against the loading dock. Cole emerged without waiting for the driver, stumbled over a pallet of empty beer kegs, and hammered his fist against the reinforced steel door.
A security camera whirred. The intercom crackled. “We’re closed, buddy. Come back at nine p>
“Tell Lucas Romano that Cole Compton is dying on his doorstep p>
Silence. Then the heavy thunk of deadbolts retracting.
Lucas Romano appeared in the gap, wearing a silk robe over pajama pants, his dark hair standing up in spikes. He took one look at Cole and stepped back, holding the door open.
“Jesus Christ. You look like you fought a dumpster and lost p>
Cole walked past him without answering. The corridor was dark, lit only by emergency exit signs. He knew the way — he had spent enough nights here in the years before June, drinking away the emptiness that came with having everything and no one to share it with.