Chapter 35 - Chaos on the Black Yacht
"Nobody moves, or I swear to God I’ll put a bullet through her skull!" Julian shrieked, his voice climbing to a hysterical pitch. He grabbed my arm, yanking me in front of him as a shield, the cold barrel of the revolver pressing violently against my temple.
"Julian, let her go," Gordon commanded, his rifle leveled steadily, his voice chillingly calm despite the lethal storm in his eyes. "You pull that trigger, and you won't leave this deck breathing."
"I have nothing left to lose!" Julian screamed, his breath hot and ragged against my neck. "She ruined me! I was the golden boy of the financial district! I had everything—wealth, status, women! She took my name, she dragged my reputation through the mud, and she gave my life’s work to you!"
"You ruined yourself, Julian," I said, refusing to wince against the steel pressing into my temple. "The day you decided that fidelity, honor, and loyalty were beneath you. The day you paraded another woman through that terminal thinking I was too weak to fight back."
"Shut up! Shut up!" Julian cried out, his arm trembling violently.
Suddenly, an unexpected sound broke through Julian’s rant—a guttural, feral scream from behind us.
Chloe, using the last ounce of strength in her battered body, lunged forward from the deck where she had been chained. The loose link of her iron tether gave her just enough slack to throw her entire weight against Julian’s bandaged right wrist.
"Get off me, you bitch!" Julian roared, staggering backward as Chloe's teeth sank into his wounded arm.
The revolver discharged into the night air with a deafening crack, the bullet shattering a glass salon door behind us.
In that heartbeat of chaos, I pivoted. Every ounce of fury, betrayal, and maternal protection that had burned inside me for months surged into my right hand. I drove my elbow squarely into Julian’s solar plexus, knocking the wind out of his lungs, followed by an open-palm strike to his fractured nose.
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Julian howled in agony, collapsing backward onto the slick deck as the revolver skittered across the planks.
Arthur Vance saw his opening. Instead of defending his protege, the old predator spun on his heel and bolted toward the helm, slamming his hand down on the twin-engine ignition sequence. The yacht’s massive twin diesels roared to life with a bone-jarring rumble, the propellers churning the water into a white vortex.
