Ron Donaldo: Rise Of The Apex Don

Chapter 45

"Marcus did!" Theresa shouted eagerly. She wanted to save herself. She wanted to throw Marcus under the bus. "Marcus met the Police Chief in a parking garage five years ago! He gave him a bag of diamonds to plant the fake evidence in Ron Donaldo’s car! I can give you the exact date and time! I wrote it down in my private diary!"

Marcus stared at Theresa. His mouth hung open in pure shock. "You kept a diary of my crimes? You stupid, crazy woman! That is evidence!"

"I kept it to protect myself from you!" Theresa snapped back. 

Marcus lost his mind. 

All the fear, all the anger, all the complete humiliation exploded inside his brain. He forgot he was in an FBI building. He forgot the cameras were rolling. He only saw the woman who was sending him to prison forever. 

"I will kill you!" Marcus roared with the fury of a madman. 

Marcus leaped out of his metal chair. He threw his entire body across the table. His handcuffed hands reached out and grabbed Theresa tightly around the throat. 

Theresa screamed in terror. She fell backward in her chair, crashing hard onto the concrete floor. Marcus fell on top of her. He squeezed her neck with all his remaining strength. 

"You ruined my life! You ruined my life!" Marcus screamed over and over again. His eyes were wide and crazy. 

Theresa clawed wildly at his face. Her long, sharp fingernails dug deep into Marcus’s cheeks, tearing his skin and drawing bright red blood. She kicked her legs, trying to push his heavy body off her. She could not breathe. Her face began to turn blue. 

"Guards!" Agent Reed yelled, jumping back from the table. 

The door burst open. Four large FBI agents rushed into the room. They grabbed Marcus by his orange jumpsuit and pulled him forcefully off Theresa. 

Marcus fought like a wild animal. He kicked and screamed. "Let me go! She deserves to die! She is a snake!"

One of the FBI agents pulled out a black stun gun and pressed it hard against Marcus’s back. 

BZZZZT. 

The strong electric shock hit Marcus’s body. He froze completely stiff, his eyes rolling back in his head, and he collapsed onto the floor, twitching and groaning. 

Theresa lay on the floor, gasping loudly for air. She rubbed her red, bruised throat. She was crying hysterically. 

Agent Reed looked down at the two broken, pathetic people on the floor. 

Agent Reed looked up at the red light on the camera in the corner of the room. She reached out and pressed a button on the wall. 

"Did you get all that?" Agent Reed asked the microphone. 

From a speaker on the wall, another agent’s voice answered. "Yes, Agent Reed. We have it all on tape. A full, voluntary confession from both of them. They just gave us every single piece of evidence we need to lock them away for the rest of their lives."

Theresa heard the voice. She stopped crying. She looked up at the camera. 

She finally realized what she had just done. In her desperate rush to hurt Marcus, she had confessed to everything. She had admitted to forging the blueprints. She had admitted to knowing about the bribes. She had given the FBI the exact location of her secret diary. 

The FBI had not even asked a single hard question. They simply put two cornered rats in a cage and watched them bite each other to death. 

The cracks in their marriage had just become the nails in their coffins. 

Agent Reed looked at Theresa. "Get up, Mrs. Sterling. We are moving you to a permanent cell. Your trial will be very short."

Two guards pulled Theresa to her feet. She did not fight. She looked completely dead inside. All her pride, all her beauty, all her power was gone. She was just a criminal going to a cage. 

Suddenly, the door to the interrogation room opened again. 

A man walked into the room. 

He was not an FBI agent. He wore a perfectly tailored, incredibly expensive black suit. His shoes were polished to a mirror shine. He carried a sleek, black leather briefcase. His face was handsome, but his eyes were completely dead and empty. He looked like a shark swimming in a pool of blood. 

"Excuse me," the man said smoothly. His voice was very quiet, but it carried a strange, heavy power. 

Agent Reed frowned. "Who are you? You cannot be in here. This is a secure area."

The man smiled politely. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small, white card. He handed it to Agent Reed. 

"My name is Mr. Vance... no relation to the General, of course," the man said. "I am the senior defense attorney for the Sterling family. I represent both Marcus Thorne and Theresa Sterling. I demand to speak with my clients privately immediately. It is their constitutional right."

Agent Reed looked at the card. It was a perfectly legal, high-level attorney credential. 

"They already confessed," Agent Reed said sharply. "You are too late."

"A confession made under extreme distress without a lawyer present can be thrown out in court," the lawyer said calmly. "I need five minutes with my clients. Alone."

Agent Reed glared at him. But the law was the law. She nodded to her guards. "Five minutes. We will be right outside."

The FBI agents dragged the twitching Marcus back into his chair. They sat Theresa in her chair. Then, Agent Reed and the guards walked out of the room, closing the heavy steel door. 

The lawyer stood in the quiet room. He looked at the two-way mirror. He knew the FBI was watching. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, black electronic device. He clicked a button. 

A high-pitched, silent frequency filled the room. It instantly scrambled the FBI microphones. The cameras kept rolling, but the audio was completely dead. The FBI could see them, but they could not hear a single word. 

The lawyer walked to the table. He looked down at Marcus and Theresa. 

"You both talk far too much," the lawyer whispered softly. 

Theresa stared at him. "Who... who sent you?"

"I represent the true owners of your company," the lawyer said. His voice was freezing cold. "I represent the Syndicate."

Marcus stopped twitching. His eyes went wide with absolute terror. He knew the stories. The Syndicate did not hire lawyers to win court cases. They hired lawyers to tie up loose ends. 

"Please," Marcus begged, a bloody tear rolling down his scratched face. "I did not tell them about the Syndicate! I only told them about The Director! I kept your secrets!"

"The Director is no longer with us," the lawyer said calmly. "He failed to contain the Warlord. He became a liability. And now, you two are liabilities."

The lawyer opened his sleek black briefcase. He did not pull out legal papers. 

He pulled out two small, perfectly white pills. 

He placed one pill in front of Marcus. He placed the other pill in front of Theresa. 

"What is this?" Theresa whispered, staring at the small white pill on the metal table.