Chapter 80 - The Fire in the Library
The hydraulic elevator ram slammed forward, violently blowing the entire eight-foot oak bookcase off its hinges into the library with the force of an artillery shell.
"Federal agents! Drop your weapons!" Harris roared as fifteen Marshals flooded into the room, their suppressed rifles erupting into a synchronized, deafening volley.
The two contractors didn't even have time to raise their weapons. The first took two rounds to the center mass, collapsing backward over the burning mahogany desk, while the second was slammed hard against the stone hearth, his weapon clattering across the polished oak floorboards.
Amanda shrieked—a raw, guttural sound of pure animal fury.
She dove behind a massive marble bust of Marcus Harrington, drawing her pistol and firing three wild, deafening shots toward the breach. A round sparked viciously off the steel elevator frame inches from my cheek.
"Amanda! It's over!" I yelled, stepping out from behind the tactical shield of the Marshals, my weapon trained dead-center on the edge of the marble pedestal where her silhouette was pinned. "The Coast Guard has the bay. The State Police have the access road. You have nowhere left to run!"
"You think this ends with handcuffs, little brother?!" she screamed back, her voice echoing off the vaulted timber ceilings as smoke from the fireplace began to choke the room. "You think you can just march in here with your cheap suit, your saintly little wife, and play the triumphant heir?!"
"Drop the gun, Amanda!" Harris commanded, flanking from the left.
"Marcus was a monster!" Amanda shrieked, her voice cracking with hysteria. "He murdered my mother! He stole Julian's companies, he paid off the judges, and he left everything to you—the bastard child of a woman he had thrown off the Boston Harbor bridge!"
The room went dead silent, save for the crackle of burning documents in the hearth.
I felt a cold chill run through my veins that had nothing to do with the winter wind howling through the broken windows. "What did you say?"
Amanda stepped out slowly from behind the marble bust. Her hands were shaking violently, the black pistol hanging loosely in her grip, but her face was split into a terrifying, triumphant grin.
"You really don't know, do you, Brian?" she whispered, her eyes glittering with madness through the haze of smoke. "You spent thirty-five years thinking Marcus was your father. You spent your whole life taking Jason’s abuse, begging for a crumb of approval from a man who treated you like dirt at every Thanksgiving dinner."
May you like
She pointed the trembling barrel of her gun directly at the heavy steel vault embedded in the floor behind her.
"Open the lockbox in that vault, Brian. Look at the birth certificate Marcus kept locked under ten inches of cold steel. You’re not a Harrington. You never were."
