Chapter 8 - The Last War
Patrick had not escaped.
Someone had released him.
That was worse.
A federal transport order had been forged.
Two guards had been bribed.
By the time authorities realized what happened, Patrick had disappeared.
Desmond immediately doubled estate security.
Sadi became furious.
“I am not living inside a bunker.”
“You were kidnapped.”
“And I escaped.”
“You head-butted a sixty-year-old man.”
“Successfully.”
“That is not reassuring.”
Desmond ordered guards assigned to her.
Sadi fired them.
Desmond assigned new ones.
She fired those too.
Eventually Frankie said, “Could you two either get married or kill each other? The scheduling is becoming difficult.”
Neither laughed.
Because Patrick was not attacking.
He was waiting.
Then Gallagher businesses began collapsing.
Bank accounts were frozen.
Warehouses were raided.
Anonymous evidence reached prosecutors.
Patrick was burning everything he could not own.
Desmond had a choice.
Fight to preserve the empire his father left him.
Or let it die.
The old Desmond would have fought.
Sadi expected him to.
Instead, he spent three nights reviewing documents with attorneys.
On the fourth morning, he called every Gallagher captain into the dining room.
“I’m done.”
Silence.
Frankie stared at him.
“With what?”
“All of it.”
Desmond placed a folder on the table.
“Legitimate businesses stay. Everything else ends.”
One captain laughed.
Desmond looked at him.
The laughter stopped.
“My father built this organization because he believed power protected family.”
Desmond glanced toward Sadi.
“He was wrong.”
He dismantled the criminal operations himself.
Records went to federal investigators.
Illegal businesses closed.
Men uninvolved in violent crimes received severance from legitimate Gallagher holdings.
Those with outstanding crimes were told to find attorneys.
Frankie approached Desmond afterward.
“Your father would have hated this.”
“I know.”
“He might also have understood.”
Desmond looked at his oldest friend.
“What about you?”
Frankie shrugged.
“I always wanted to own a bar.”
Sadi smiled.
“You’d be terrifying at customer service.”
For the first time, freedom seemed possible.
Patrick attacked that night.
Not with guns.
With fire.
Sadi woke to alarms.
Smoke filled the eastern wing.
“Desmond!”
She ran into his room.
His wheelchair was dead.
The power had been cut.
Emergency systems should have activated.
They did not.
Sabotage.
Desmond was already dragging himself toward the edge of the bed.
“Manual chair.”
It sat across the room.
Sadi ran for it.
An explosion shook the house.
Part of the ceiling collapsed.
Flames filled the hallway.
She pushed the chair toward him.
Another beam crashed.
It landed between them.
“Sadi!”
“I’m okay!”
She wasn’t.
Fire separated them.
Desmond stared at the wheelchair on her side.
He had no way across.
Smoke thickened.
“Sadi, leave!”
“Absolutely not!”
“The west stairs!”
“I’m not leaving you!”
Desmond looked toward the bathroom.
Marble floor.
Minimal combustible material.
He pulled himself from the bed.
His arms hit the floor.
Then something happened.
His left knee drew forward.
Not much.
Enough.
He froze.
“Sadi!”
She saw it.
“Again!”
He planted both palms.
Dragged.
His right leg remained mostly useless.
The left responded slightly.
He crawled.
Not walked.
Not stood.
Crawled.
But for the first time since the bombing, one leg helped him move.
Sadi climbed across the fallen beam.
She reached him.
Together they made it into the bathroom.
Sprinklers finally activated.
Firefighters reached them nine minutes later.
Outside, wrapped in blankets, Sadi watched half the east wing burn.
Desmond sat in a borrowed chair.
Frankie approached.
“They caught someone at the north wall.”
Patrick.
Police dragged him toward a cruiser.
He saw Desmond.
“You destroyed your father’s empire!”
Desmond stared at the burning mansion.
Then at Sadi.
“No.”
His voice was calm.
“I ended yours.”
Patrick was taken away.
This time there would be no private revenge.
No cellar.
No Gallagher justice.
Desmond let the legal system have him.
At dawn, Sadi sat beside Desmond in an ambulance.
“You moved your knee.”
“I crawled through a burning bedroom.”
“You moved your knee.”
“The house is on fire.”
“Your knee, Desmond.”
He started laughing.
So did she.
Then Sadi leaned against him.
The estate burned behind them.
The criminal empire was gone.
May you like
Patrick had lost.
And somehow the man who believed the wheelchair had stolen his future had never looked more free.
