Chapter 145 - The Trial of Blood
At 6:00 AM, the cold winter dawn broke over the frozen spires of Zurich, painting the city in shades of steel gray and pale amber.
Inside the penthouse suite, the standoff had reached its breaking point.
Lord Charles Sterling sat slumped in his chair, his skin ashen, his mouth dry, staring at the small black detonator resting in Ethan’s steady hand. The four armed mercenaries had their weapons lowered to waist level, their eyes hollowed by eight hours of agonizing psychological terror.
The heavy suite doors suddenly shook with three massive, rhythmic impacts.
BAM. BAM. BAM.
"Lord Sterling!" a voice shouted from the outer hallway. "Open the doors! The Federal Banking Commission has just revoked our trading clearance! The German authorities are executing search warrants on the Frankfurt branch!"
Sterling surged to his feet, knocking his cane to the carpet, his aristocratic composure shattering into a rabid, cornered frenzy.
"Shoot him!" Sterling screamed at his four guards. "Shoot him now! I don't care if the building blows! Kill him!"
The lead mercenary raised his weapon, his finger tightening on the trigger.
Ethan moved.
He didn't dive for cover. He kicked the heavy oak coffee table upward, using the four-inch-thick slab of polished timber as a ballistic shield as the guard’s weapon discharged—crack-crack-crack.
Bullets chewed through the wood, sending splinters showering across the ceiling.
Ethan surged over the table, closed the distance in half a second, his left hand clamping around the guard’s wrist, twisting the joint until the radius snapped with a sound like a dry pine branch. He disarmed the man in mid-air, brought the steel butt of the pistol down onto the second guard’s collarbone, and drove his heel straight through the knee of the third.
The fourth guard backed against the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, his hands raised, dropping his weapon onto the carpet in pure, unadulterated terror.
"Don't shoot!" the guard wept. "I’m just private security! I have three kids in Lucerne!"
"Get out," Ethan growled.
The guard scrambled past him, tearing through the broken double doors into the hallway.
Ethan turned slowly to face Lord Charles Sterling.
The old man stood backing against the fireplace, clutching an antique iron poker with shaking, withered hands.
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"You're a monster, Ethan," Sterling whimpered, tears of humiliation spilling down his wrinkled cheeks. "You destroyed a dynasty that took two centuries to build."
"Your dynasty was built on the blood of mothers, Charles," Ethan said, walking slowly toward him, tossing the empty weapon onto the sofa. "And today... the bill came due."
