Chapter 73 - The Matriarch's Trap
The storm howled across the eighty-story drop, whipping my hair across my face as water ran down the barrel of my gun.
Below us, inside the reinforced vault, my daughters were counting down the seconds of their lives. In front of me, Alexander was locked in a brutal life-or-death struggle with Tristan’s lead mercenary, their hands wrestling over a combat blade on the slick decking. And twenty feet away, Tristan stood with his thumb resting on the red toggle of a radio frequency detonator.
"You really thought you could run," Tristan shouted, his aristocratic voice cracking with maniacal strain. "You thought because you bought up some debt and humiliated Julian at the country club, you were a player on the world stage! Arthur Vance spent forty years building the Apex Syndicate! It belongs to the true bloodline! Not to your bastard gutter-rats!"
"My children have more of Arthur’s strength in their fingernails than you and Julian have in your entire corrupted lineage," I replied, my voice dead, flat, and carrying clearly over the roar of the rotors. I didn't lower the gun. My sights stayed fixed on the center of his forehead. "You're a coward, Tristan. You hide behind mercenaries because you know you couldn't take a single dollar from me in the light of day."
"Die thinking you're righteous, then!" Tristan snarled, his thumb depressing the detonator.
Click.
Nothing happened.
Tristan’s eyes widened. He mashed the red button again. Twice. Three times. The thermite charges on the vault shaft remained inert, dark, and silent.
"Looking for a signal, Tristan?"
A small, steady voice came through the rooftop PA system. It was Leo.
"I reversed the local cellular frequency eighteen seconds ago," Leo’s voice echoed coldly through the rain from the penthouse speakers. "Your detonator is transmitting on an empty band. And by the way... I just tapped into your helicopter’s flight management system."
Inside the idling helicopter, the digital avionics suddenly flared bright red. Eleanor Vance shrieked behind the glass as the co-pilot desperately grabbed at the flight controls, which were locking up under Leo’s remote intrusion script.
Tristan’s face went white. The absolute, unshakeable confidence that had sustained the Vance dynasty for generations shattered in a single fraction of a second.
"Kill her!" Tristan screamed at his remaining guard.
Alexander broke the mercenary's wrist with a sickening snap, driving his elbow into the man’s throat and rolling free. Before Tristan could raise his chrome pistol toward me, a sharp crack echoed from the doorway.
Liam had fired.
The buckshot caught Tristan in the right shoulder, spinning him violently around. His pistol flew across the deck, skidding over the edge into the Manhattan abyss. Tristan collapsed onto the wet composite floor, clutching his shredded shoulder, howling in agony as his blood mingled with the torrential rain.
I stepped forward, my boots heavy against the deck, until the barrel of my pistol was pressed directly against the bridge of Tristan Vance’s nose.
"You wanted to negotiate for my children?" I whispered, looking down at the broken architect of the Apex assault. "Here is my counter-offer."
Inside the helicopter, Eleanor saw the barrel against her favored nephew’s head. She threw open the cabin door, the wind tearing at her designer silk scarf, her face contorted in frantic terror.
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"Katherine! Stop!" Eleanor shrieked, clutching the doorframe. "You can't kill him! You kill him, and the European Directorate will deploy every asset they have! They will scorch the earth you walk on!"
"Then let them come," I said, cold as stone. "Because when they get here, Eleanor, they won't find a frightened ex-wife. They will find the woman who buried the entire Vance family."
