The Titan's Empire (Heinous Crimes Unit Book 6), page 1
THE TITAN’S EMPIRE
HEINOUS CRIMES UNIT™ BOOK SIX
DANIEL SCOTT
This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2017, 2023 Daniel Scott & David Beers
Cover Art by Jake @ J Caleb Design
http://jcalebdesign.com / jcalebdesign@gmail.com
Cover copyright © Marlow & Vane
Marlowe & Vane supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Marlowe & Vane
an imprint of LMBPN Publishing
PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy
Las Vegas, NV 89109
Previously Published as The Titan
Version 1.00, February 2023
ebook ISBN: 979-8-88541-375-6
Print ISBN: 979-8-88878-218-7
THE TITAN’S EMPIRE TEAM
Thanks to our JIT Readers
Wendy L Bonell
Kelly O’Donnell
John Ashmore
Alison Kelly
Jan Hunnicutt
Editor
SkyFyre Editing Team
For Heather. You and I both know the tremendous effort it took to edit this book. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
CONTENTS
The Fall
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Letters from a Killer
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Letters from a Killer
Letters from a Troubled Soul
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
The Book of Titan
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Letters from a Killer
Connect with The Author
Books by Daniel Scott
THE FALL
CHAPTER ONE
Please, see him clearly, as I do.
He steps out of the shower, water dripping from his body as well as from the faucet behind him. Fog hangs around his face, filling much of the bathroom. He stands still for a second, not moving as he looks down at his feet.
They are clean and free of scars. His gaze moves up his legs, seeing more smooth skin. He looks at his hips and groin, everything appearing as it should.
The door to the bathroom is open and the fog is lifting. The man goes to the mirror. He takes a small towel from the rack on the wall and wipes away the moisture, seeing himself clearly.
A long scar cuts across his torso, ending at the bottom of his ribs. It’s receded, but it still stands out like a craggy mountain ridge. Scar tissue, less deep, decorates the rest of his chest. Small strips of skin that had been torn away by a leather whip are now rough tissue. There is a large circular pucker on the lower left side of his stomach, where a red flower once bloomed.
The man stares at himself.
He looks at his shoulders and sees where the whip carved up his back, ripping off the flesh there. His eyes move to his face, which had once been young and full of hope. Now it holds another scar, the raised circle on his cheek covering a hole that should have killed him.
The man stands looking at himself, at a body that had been born beautiful and was now the product of a sadistic artist who decorated with pain and torture, his paintbrush a weapon.
The man swallows and meets his eyes in the mirror.
This is his body, the only one he has. The only one he will ever have. Broken, scarred, but not beaten. Not yet.
He turns from the mirror and walks into the hotel room.
Christian Windsor exited the bathroom and moved to the bed. His clothes were laid out before him, a crisp white button-down shirt and freshly pressed pants. The suit’s jacket hung from the bathroom door.
“Thank you,” he said, not looking at the person on the other side of the room.
“You’re welcome,” the woman said.
Veronica, Christian thought. It’s Veronica, not a strange woman.
Which was true, and yet it wasn’t. He didn’t have time to consider that now.
He threw on his boxers and undershirt, then grabbed the button-down from the bed. It covered the scars, hiding most of them from the world. The one on his face couldn’t be hidden.
Christian turned to the mirror and continued dressing, his fingers dancing up the shirt’s buttons.
“Are they here?” Veronica asked.
Christian glanced in the mirror and saw the Other lying on the bed behind him and staring at the ceiling. His eyes were bleeding, the large red drops dripping down the side of his face and staining the bed linens. Christian would have to sleep in that blood later tonight.
“One is. The other isn’t,” he said.
He hadn’t seen the mouth in a day or so. He wouldn’t delude himself into thinking it was gone. He knew only one way to make them disappear for good, but that couldn’t be accomplished at the moment.
Christian tolerated the Other. There was a certain sad truth to him, even if he hated to admit it. The Other was his negative, something Luke’s presence had created. Yet the Other was now in a similar position to Christian. Perhaps an even worse place.
The Other wanted nothing more than to be freed, which was another way of saying he wanted to die.
The mouth was a monstrosity Christian couldn’t stand, but as with the Other, there was no ridding himself of it. A thing created of black shadows, a Cheshire cat grin with huge, jagged teeth. He was glad it wasn’t here right now. He didn’t know where it was, but it would be back.
“Do you think they’ll interfere with the hearing?” Veronica sat at a small table across the room with a cup of coffee in front of her. She had been staring out of the hotel window since five this morning.
“You can tell her I won’t interfere with anything. I’m not even sure I’m going,” the Other said.
“I don’t know,” Christian told Veronica, ignoring the Other’s comment.
Neither of them could be trusted since neither of them existed. They were both creations of Christian’s mind, which meant his mind couldn’t be trusted.
“It could be bad if they try interrupting,” Veronica said.
Christian was quiet. Much of his life was now spent in silence. He sometimes spoke to Veronica but offered none of his thoughts. Like his mind, hers couldn’t be trusted either.
He put his pants on and tightened the belt around his waist. He slipped his feet into his shoes, then walked back to the mirror.
“Your tie is on the bed,” Veronica said.
Christian had seen it, but would he wear it?
He remembered the day he was offered a job with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He’d been riding the train to the director’s office, worrying about his tie knot. He had thought he’d messed it up and knew there’d be no time to fix it before he sat down.
He looked at the unbuttoned top of his shirt and knew he wouldn’t be wearing a tie today.
“You should wear one,” the Other said. “They’re not going to be friendly.”
“Fuck them,” Christian replied.
Senator Robert Alexander Franklin took his seat on the lengthy dais. He was the last senator to arrive, even if he was five minutes early. He wanted to be the last to come in because he planned on being the most aggressive. He wanted everyone sitting in the closed meeting to understand that he was in charge and that they would go at his pace.
Which would be fast.
He opened the notebook in front of him, keeping his eyes down as he did. He didn’t want the people in here to think he was more concerned with them than getting his things in order. He pulled a pen from his jacket pocket and laid it across the notebook.
Finally, Senator Robert Alexander Franklin looked up. “Thank you all for coming today.”
The room was packed. It was as busy as any hearing Robert had ever participated in. He was presiding over this special committee created for one purpose, the Committee for Responsible Justice Enforcement. Robert didn’t like the name, but that didn’t matter. The public knew what it stood for. He was in charge of getting to the bottom of the royally fucked chase for Luke Titan.
Robert didn’t give two hoots or a single holler about what had happened to Titan. No one had seen or heard from him in a year, and Robert secretly thought the man would stay out of sight for the rest of his life. He’d barely made it out alive, from what t
What mattered to Senator Robert Alexander Franklin were the three people in front of him.
Three desks were spaced evenly before the dais. On the far left was Attorney General Wendy Welcs. In the center was the man of the hour besides Robert, former FBI Director Alan Waverly. On the far right was the scarred freak, who Robert had heard had lost his mind during his last round with Titan. Oh, yeah, he was also a former FBI employee.
The first two desks, Welcs’ and Waverly’s, had a lawyer sitting at each and two or three more behind them. The freak sat alone, the desk looking much too large for him.
You’re not going to have much of a career in politics if you don’t understand the power of looking good, son, Robert thought.
Behind the three desks was the press corps and anyone else who could squeeze into the peanut gallery.
“Thank you for coming today. We’re here to understand what happened with the Luke Titan investigation. I’d like to remind everyone who is being questioned by this committee that you are free to invoke the Fifth Amendment. I have a few remarks, and then we can get started.
“This committee has been convened due to an alleged dereliction of duty, a breach of the public trust placed in our law enforcement officers, and what I personally believe to be of a criminal nature. It is alleged that the former FBI director, Alan Waverly, hired a contract killer to eliminate Luke Titan when he and his organization failed to arrest the fugitive. It’s further alleged that much of the Titan investigation was performed under a veil of secrecy, culminating in an upstanding agent’s murder. This committee’s purpose is to get to the bottom of what happened so that we can implement safeguards against something like this happening again.”
Robert paused and looked at the other senators. “My colleague from Arizona, would you like to begin?” He couldn’t stand the bitch, but he knew she was going to rip into Waverly, so having her start was A-okay.
“Thank you, Senator Franklin,” Tabby Heinz said. “Director Waverly, I think what concerns me most is that we need to know the truth. Did you indeed contract with a killer?”
Waverly looked at the senator asking him the question, still unsure of how he would respond. He knew what his lawyers wanted him to say. He was to plead the Fifth to anything asked of him.
He’d been summoned before Congress, and here he was, mandated to answer their questions. A criminal investigation had commenced. This hearing was for spectacle, something the great Senator Robert Alexander Franklin could put on his highlight reel when he went back home to pander for votes.
Waverly wanted to glance at Christian, but he kept his eyes forward.
This was a spectacle, but Waverly still had to look out for himself. Whatever was said here would be used as evidence in the criminal investigation.
“On advice from my counsel, I respectfully assert my Fifth Amendment right,” Waverly said.
“I thought you might do that,” the congresswoman replied. “I imagine you might do that a lot during these next few hours, but I still have questions. Could you outline for the committee what happened when Special Agent Christian Windsor went missing a year ago? Please pay specific attention to your actions after his whereabouts became unknown.”
Waverly’s lawyer leaned in and whispered to him. “Same. Same all the way through.”
“On advice from my counsel, I respectfully assert my Fifth Amendment right.” You fucking bitch. What I did after Special Agent Christian Windsor went missing was nothing. I went back to my house, and I poured a three-finger glass of bourbon. When I finished it, I poured another. I kept going until I ended up sleeping on the floor with tears staining my face. After? I woke up, went to Welcs, and told her I was done. Then I called my lawyer since I knew the jig was up.
“Attorney General Welcs, maybe you can enlighten the committee about what happened?”
Welcs was the only one in the room who wasn’t hated. The press behind Waverly had been excoriating him for the past six months. It had taken that long for the leaks to reach reporters. Waverly had resigned for a lot more reasons than his inability to catch Titan. Since they’d found out, there had been a never-ending stream of news blasting across every television and paper in the country.
“While the timeline cannot be precisely determined due to Director Waverly’s actions, what I believe occurred was that the day after Special Agent Windsor disappeared, the director came and offered me his resignation, which I accepted,” Welcs said.
She was making the smart move, the only one she had. Directing the bus as it drove over Waverly’s body.
“Did he tell you Agent Windsor was missing?” the congresswoman asked.
“No. There was no mention of that.”
“What did he tell you about Luke Titan?”
“He said they had no knowledge of his whereabouts,” Welcs answered.
“Did you believe he was telling the truth?”
“At the time, yes, I did. Now, I don’t know.”
The congresswoman kept going, intent on destroying any shred of reputation Waverly still possessed. “I’m asking you to speculate. I know that’s not something lawyers prefer to do, but it will help us all understand what was happening at the time. Do you know why Director Waverly didn’t mention any of this?”
“Well, Congresswoman, as you said, I don’t like to speculate. However, speaking honestly, I can’t say why he wouldn’t have told us. Special Agent Windsor was only missing for twenty-four hours at that point. We could have perhaps kept him from being wounded and saved Agent Thomas Phillips’s life.”
“Thank you, Attorney General. I see my time is running low, so I yield the floor to my colleague from New York.”
Waverly watched as Senator Franklin leaned into the microphone. This was going as he’d thought it would. He would keep his mouth shut because opening it would lead to harsher penalties when the special investigation was finished. He couldn’t explain the truth to these people if he had a million years and a million mouths. He wanted to look at Christian because he was the only one in this room who had any understanding of what had happened.
What would I say to him? he wondered.
That I’m sorry. That I didn’t report anything because I didn’t think there was any reason to. You hadn’t done anything. Nothing. No struggle. You just went with that killer, and I thought that was what you wanted. I still think it was. I think the only reason you’re here is that Luke won’t let you die. Maybe I’m not sorry because maybe I was right. You wanted to die, and I was letting you finally do it.
They’d had virtually no contact since Christian had made it back to society. Waverly’s lawyers had forbidden it. Christian was involved in the investigation, but Waverly didn’t know if he’d been subpoenaed before the grand jury.
His lawyer had asked Waverly what Christian would say. The case depended on whether Waverly had hired the killer. Only four people besides the Animal’s contact—and he had vanished— knew the truth. Luke, Waverly, Veronica, and Christian. So what Christian said mattered greatly.
He wasn’t a liar. Scarred and changed, yes, but Waverly wasn’t expecting him to say anything untrue. Waverly had lawyered up and was taking the Fifth, but all the lawyers in the world couldn’t stop the truth from coming out if Christian wanted to tell it.
“I’d like to direct my question to the former special agent,” Senator Franklin said. “Mr. Windsor, there was a transmitter injected into your calf, correct? One that would have allowed the authorities to trace your location. What happened to it? When the lobby of your apartment called to say a visitor was on his way, why didn’t you call for backup? We’ve checked your records. No outgoing call was placed.”
The mouth had arrived, and it sat right behind Senator Franklin. It was grinning with its teeth ajar, looking like it might take a large bite out of the man’s head.
Christian tried to keep his gaze from diverting to it. He looked at the senator instead.
There were any number of lies he could offer. Luke or the Animal, whose name turned out to be Martin Cianado, had removed it after he was captured. He could say he’d been unconscious most of the time. He could also do as Waverly had and hide behind the Fifth Amendment.
