Chapter 98 - Midnight on the Grand Canal
The old woman looked up at the catwalk, her cold eyes fixing first upon Emma, then upon Clara, and finally resting on the little girl wrapped in Emma's coat. There was no warmth in her expression, no relief that her daughters had survived an ambush—only the bitter, venomous calculation of a spider whose web had been torn.
"You always were remarkably stubborn, Emma," her mother’s voice carried over the wind, sharp and commanding despite her years. "Just like your wretched father. You could have walked away with ten million dollars. You could have lived a quiet, comfortable life in the countryside, raising that child in blissful ignorance. But you had to make that phone call."
"You took my life away from me!" Emma screamed back through the storm, standing at the edge of the catwalk. "You stole Clara! You lied about my father! You treated Lily like a stray dog on her own birthday!"
"Because she *is* a stray!" the matriarch snarled, her aristocratic composure slipping into raw fury. "She was never supposed to be born! She carries the pure genetic key that bypasses the entire elder council! With her alive, everything I spent fifty years building—every penny of the Laurent foundation—reverts to a child who doesn't even know how to balance a checkbook!"
Daniel didn't waste time on family grievances. He raised his weapon and fired a round clean through the umbrella held above the old woman's head, snapping the shaft in two. The guard flinched, reaching for his sidearm, but Daniel's second round caught him in the shoulder, knocking him backward into the canal with a violent splash.
"Move down the ladder!" Daniel ordered, covering the catwalk behind them as boots thudded up the stairs from the cloister. "Take the boat!"
Clara moved with astonishing speed, vaulting over the railing and sliding down the mooring ropes directly onto the deck of the carbon launch. She drew her weapon, aiming it squarely at her mother's chest. "Step away from the helm, Mother. Your reign ended forty minutes ago."
The old woman stepped back, her face pale with fury as Emma and Daniel dropped onto the deck with Lily.
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"You think you've won?" the matriarch sneered, backing toward the cabin as Daniel grabbed the throttle. "The Grand Canal is locked down. The port authority belongs to the Council. You won't make it two nautical miles before the lagoon becomes your graveyard!"
Daniel slammed the twin throttles forward. The high-performance launch roared to life, its screws biting into the dark water, throwing up a massive plume of white spray as it shot out into the open, fog-shrouded expanse of the Venetian lagoon.
