195 I walked into our anniversary party with a man my husband had never met. He laughed in front of everyone and asked, / Chapter 39 / 86

Chapter 39 - The Glass Bastion

I kicked the double doors open.

The suite was vast, opulent, and suffocatingly quiet save for the rhythmic bleep of an intravenous monitor. Martha Taylor was slumped in a motorized wheelchair in the center of the room, her silver hair tangled around her pale temples, an IV line taped to the back of her trembling hand.

Standing behind her, holding an uncapped gold fountain pen, was Marcus Porter.

He was dressed in a pristine bespoke navy suit, but his tie was slightly askew, his eyes wide and bloodshot with the frenzied panic of an animal realizing its cage is shrinking. Standing beside him was Evelyn Porter, wearing a pearl necklace and an ivory silk blouse, her expression twisted into a mask of pure venom. Two armed federal contractors stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Denver skyline.

"Nina," Marcus breathed, a manic smile stretching across his lips as he gripped Martha's frail shoulder harder. "You actually made it. I didn't think Jonah’s antique iron could outrun a military interceptor."

"Let her go, Marcus," I said, my voice dead and level. I stepped into the room, refusing to look at the weapons aimed at my chest.

"Put the gun away, Ross!" Evelyn hissed, pointing a trembling, manicured finger at Jonah, who stood half a pace behind me, his weapon held at the low-ready, his stance immovably rooted. "You're trespassing on federal jurisdiction! We have a signed power-of-attorney order from the Department of Commerce!"

"Your power of attorney is counterfeit, Evelyn," Arthur Vance announced smoothly, stepping past me into the light. He held up a thick manila folder bearing the raised golden crest of the Tenth Circuit Appellate Court. "Fifteen minutes ago, the federal receiver assigned to Julian Croft’s holdings was arrested in his Washington office for accepting thirty million dollars in offshore kickbacks from the Porter Trust. Your diplomatic immunity is revoked. Your assets are frozen."

Marcus’s face drained of color. He looked from Arthur to Evelyn, his fingers digging deeper into my mother's flesh until she cried out in pain.

"Don't listen to him!" Marcus shouted, his voice cracking with hysteria. "Sign the transfer deed, Martha! Sign it right now, or I swear to God I will disconnect your dialysis shunt before they can take two steps!"

"Marcus, please..." Martha sobbed, her hand shaking violently as she hovered the pen over the paper. "He said... he said he’d kill you, Nina..."

"He can't kill anyone, Mother," I said, taking two slow, deliberate steps toward them. The clicking of my heels on the hardwood floor sounded like the cocking of a hammer. "He’s a coward who hides behind dead men's money and his mother’s skirts."

"Shut your mouth!" Marcus shrieked, his composure shattering entirely. He reached into his suit jacket and drew a small chrome revolver, aiming it directly at my face. "You think you're better than me, Nina? You were nothing until I married you! A pathetic orphan clinging to a bankrupt railroad! I built this empire! I deserve every mile of track your father bled for!"

"You didn't build anything, Marcus," Jonah’s deep voice cut through the room like a broadsword. He stepped in front of me, placing his massive frame between Marcus's gun and my heart. "You stole from an old man, you betrayed your wife, and now you're waving a toy in a hospital room because you know your life is over."

"Shoot him, Marcus!" Evelyn screamed, her aristocratic composure dissolving into pure shrieking terror. "Shoot them both!"