Chapter 61 - The Edge of the Abyss
"Sterling," I said, keeping my eyes fixed on Castille while tracking the red laser dot wavering over my lapel. "You were the one funneling the offshore payments. It was never Victoria Vance. It was you."
"Marcus made me the trustee of those private Swiss holdings in 1992," Sterling replied coldly from the catwalk. "I was entitled to twenty percent of the Geneva release upon his death. But you—you stubborn, ungrateful bastard—you froze all the overseas master accounts under that sanctimonious bankruptcy filing! Julian and I are simply taking back what Marcus stole from both of us."
"Drop the plate on the concrete, Brian," Julian commanded, stepping forward, his pistol now raised and centered on my forehead. "Step away from the grate. If you cooperate, your death will be painless, and I will leave your wife and son untouched in their little cellar."
The rain outside intensified, pounding against the corrugated steel roof like a volley of gunfire.
"You made one mistake, Julian," I whispered, meeting his murderous eyes without flinching.
"And what is that?"
"You assumed Emily stayed in the cellar."
Suddenly, the deafening crack of a high-caliber sniper rifle shattered the rafters. Above us, Robert Sterling didn't even have time to scream; his rifle clattered to the steel grating before his body fell thirty feet into the concrete pit with a sickening thud.
Instantly, the harbor windows behind Castille exploded inward as Miller’s tactical team breached the dry dock, strobe lights blinding the warehouse in disorienting pulses. Gunfire erupted in deafening bursts.
Julian didn't hesitate. With feral speed, he dove toward me, tackling me against the iron railing. We slammed into the rusted barrier, wrestling violently for control of the titanium plate. His fingers clawed into my throat, his eyes blazing with aristocratic madness.
"If my family burns, you burn with us!" he roared into my face, wrenching my arm back toward the black abyss of the drainage pit.
The plate slipped from my fingers, pinging against the iron grate, teetering on the absolute edge of the fifty-foot drop.
Above the roar of the rushing seawater and the muzzle flashes lighting the dark, my satellite phone inside my breast pocket suddenly shrilled with an emergency automated override tone—the unique frequency tied only to the panic room at our home.
Emily’s voice crackled through the speaker, breathless, frantic, and cut through by the terrifying sound of shattering glass and heavy footsteps on the floor above her:
May you like
*"Brian! They weren't all at the harbor—they're inside the house! They have Leo—"*
A single gunshot echoed through the receiver, followed by absolute, terrifying silence.
