Chapter 162: Chapter One Hundred-Sixty-Two: Witness
//CLARA//
My stomach violently heaved.
A sour, hot rush of bile flooded the back of my throat, and I had to forcefully swallow it down, my teeth biting into my own knuckles until I tasted copper.
I pressed my spine so hard against the brick that the mortar dug through my coat.
Don’t breathe, I told myself, the words a frantic loop of white noise in my head. Do not make a single sound. If you throw up right now, you are dead.
A sickening thud echoed, followed immediately by a sharp crack that sounded like a piece of timber snapping under a boot. Only it wasn’t timber. It was the distinct sound of a leather-gloved fist smashing into a jaw.
Bartholomew let out a choked, gurgling shriek, his head whipping violently to the side as a spray of fresh crimson spattered across the stone floorboards.
Casimir rolled his shoulders, shaking out the tension and flexing his gloved fingers. "That was satisfying."
"Why...don’t you just kill me?" Bartholomew let out a whistling wheeze, spitting a tooth onto the straw at his feet. "I already told you everything. The shipping logs... at the exchange... I didn’t write the names... Cuthbert did... before you murdered him..."
"William Cuthbert had grown overly ambitious," Casimir’s tone dripped with indifference. "And a bullet is a mercy reserved for men who have something left to offer."
Casimir calmly stepped back, not out of mercy, but to ensure the ensuing mess wouldn’t ruin his tailored trousers. He gave a curt nod to the broad-shouldered man waiting in the shadows.
The man hauled the strap with his full weight. The leather tore through skin, shredding it into ribbons of dark, oozing crimson.
But that was just the baseline.
Casimir gestured to the iron mallet. The man hoisted it, then brought it down on Bartholomew’s kneecap.
The splintering bone cracked like a cannonball.
The joint caved inward, something white and sharp pushed through the mess of flesh and skin. Blood sprayed the straw, speckling Casimir’s coat.
Bartholomew’s scream scraped against my ears, then choked off as his jaw locked and his body went rigid against the chains.
Casimir stepped closer, his boots crunching on the blood-soaked straw. He grabbed Bartholomew by his matted hair, violently wrenching his head back to force him conscious.
"The ledger requires the final index. You and your father used the syndicate’s northern maritime routes to bypass the state tariff. Where is it?"
"There is no index!"
Bartholomew wailed. His legs thrashing in the dirt, his eyes rolling back until only the whites showed.
"I swear to God, Guggenheim! I only wanted the Thorne dowry! I only wanted the land certificates to choke your access to the Hudson! It was the syndicate’s board..."
My heart hammered so loud I was terrified Casimir would hear it.
The jigsaw pieces in my head were spinning, slamming into each other, finally locking into a horrific, comprehensive picture. This was exactly what Gary had seen. The fever dream, the terrifying visions of Elias’s memories at the docks.
It was a literal historical record. Elias had stood in these exact shadows, watching William Cuthbert get systematically dismantled before his execution.
Casimir hadn’t just stumbled into the syndicate’s crosshairs because of a corporate rivalry. He was the center of it. He wasn’t their victim, and he wasn’t their passive employer. He was the entity clearing the board.
He was using their own greed, to lure every corrupt official, every rival tycoon, into a single room so he could strip them of their assets and erase them from existence.
"Thurston was an unstable variable." Casimir checked his pocket watch by the lantern’s glow. "The board wanted to see how far I would go to protect my ward—my wife."
He snapped the watch shut with a sharp, metallic click. "Now you know."
"You’re mad...disgusting bastard." Bartholomew gurgled, blood bubble-spitting from his lips as he lifted his swollen face. "You think you can kill us all? We are the foundation of this city’s commerce. If you pull the keystone, the whole empire collapses."
"Then I’ll gladly watch it burn." He didn’t even look up as he adjusted the leather glove over his right knuckles. "We’ll build a more efficient one from the ashes."
The two large men moved, hauling Bartholomew up by his chains until his arms were pulled taut above his head, his toes barely skimming the floor. I watched through the narrow gap, my vision blurring, my stomach twisting into violent knots.
I pressed my hands harder over my mouth, my chest heaving, trying to swallow the panic.
Just stay still. He’ll leave, and only then can you run.
Then, something cold, wet, and intensely sharp brushed against the bare skin of my ankle.
My breath caught in a vice. I didn’t look down. I couldn’t. But a second later, a tiny scratching sensation moved over the top of my boot, followed by a sharp squeak.
A dock rat.
The primal, involuntary terror exploded through my system before my analytical brain could stop it. My foot violently jerked against the support beam of the crate, and a tiny, muffled gasp tore straight through my clamped fingers.
"Mmh!"
The sound wasn’t loud. In a normal room, it would have been missed. But in the echoing silence of the warehouse, it hit like a gunshot.
Instantly, everything went dead still. The leather strap stopped moving. Bartholomew’s ragged sobbing cut short.
Casimir didn’t hesitate. His reaction time was a terrifying, fluid reflex.
In a fraction of a second, his right hand plunged into his waistcoat, withdrawing a matte-black revolver. The hammer clicked back.
He simply pointed the barrel straight into the darkness. To my exact location.
My blood turned to ice.
Casimir cocked his head slightly. He didn’t look back at his workers as he gave a single, curt jerk of his chin.
"Raise the lantern."
One of them immediately grabbed the iron lantern from the desk, lifting it high. The light cut through the darkness, creeping up the narrow gap where I was wedged.
Move, my brain screamed. Move goddamnit, run!
But my legs were lead. The light swept over, climbing up until it hit my face, exposing me completely in the narrow crevice.
Casimir walked closer. The gun remained aligned perfectly with my forehead. He took three steps into the alcove, the lantern light fully illuminating his features.
And then, he froze.
The revolver didn’t drop, but his gray eyes widened, the pupils contracting into tiny pinpricks of pure, unadulterated shock.
The flat, dead ice in his expression shattered, replaced by a sudden, rigid horror. His jaw tightened so hard I could hear the bone grind, the muscle ticking violently beneath his pale skin.
"Clara..."
It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even an exclamation. It was the sound of a man watching his entire carefully constructed universe fracture right down the middle.
For a split second, the monster vanished, and the husband who was terrified of losing his wife looked through his eyes.
That second was all I needed.
The spell broke. Panic took the wheel.
I scrambled out from behind the crate, my hands scratching wildly against the rough wood, nearly falling to my knees in the dirt. I bolted.
"Clara! Fuck!"
Casimir roared out behind me, but I was already running down the main aisle of the warehouse.
My boots tore over the floorboards, my chest burning as I sprinted past the endless rows of towering shipping crates.
I didn’t look back. I could hear his footsteps crashing after me, the chains rattling in the distance, the shouts of his men echoing off the rafters.
Get out, get out, get out!
I hit the side cargo door, shoving it open with my shoulder, tumbling out into the freezing, misty morning air of the pier.
The frost hit my face, but I didn’t stop. I ran toward the street, my heart bursting, my breath coming in hysterical screams.
I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. I knew he wouldn’t even touch a single strand of hair on my head. He had already proven that a thousand times.
But I wasn’t running from what he would do to me. I was running from the absolute horror of what I had just seen him do to someone else.
I was only five steps into the foggy clearing of the wharf when the world suddenly tilted.
Before I could even scream, a pair of massive hands slammed around my waist, cutting the air straight out of my lungs.
The momentum lifted my boots clean off the frozen ground. I shrieked, my hands flailing in the empty air as my vision spun upside down, my stomach slamming hard against a solid wall of muscle.
He had caught me.
Casimir swung me over his broad shoulder, his massive arm locking across the back of my thighs, pinning my legs against his chest so I couldn’t kick.
"Let me down!" I squealed, pounding my fists against his spine. "Let me go, Casimir!"
He didn’t loosen his grip by a single millimeter.
"I knew your ridiculous curiosity would eventually uncover something, little bird."
He leaned his head down against the small of my back, his voice a menacing growl that vibrated straight through my bones.
"But I hadn’t expected you to dare crack my code so soon."
