My Parents Skipped the Funeral of My Husband and Two Children for My Sister’s Birthday, but Six Months Later, One Headline Made Them Panic When They Discovered What I Had Done. / Chapter 99 / 121

Chapter 99 - Fire on Cold Water

The deafening report of Julian’s gunshot shattered the heavy glass decanter behind me as I drove my shoulder directly into his midsection. We crashed over the mahogany desk in a violent tangle of limbs, crystal, and paper, tumbling onto the hard steel decking below.

Julian was taller and heavier, his combat training evident as he drove an elbow into my ribs, knocking the breath from my lungs. The pistol went skidding across the floorboards, spinning into the darkness near the server racks.

"You ruined everything!" he roared, his aristocratic facade completely disintegrating into unhinged fury. His hands closed around my throat, his thumbs pressing viciously into my windpipe, slamming my head against the iron floor. "I built this empire! I am the god of this family! You were supposed to die in the shadows!"

Black spots danced across my vision. The roar of the North Sea outside seemed to invade the room. Through the suffocating haze, my right hand slid down toward my boot sheath, finding the knurled grip of the tactical trench blade.

With every ounce of leverage left in my body, I drove the blade upward through his shoulder joint.

Julian shrieked—a high, ragged scream of agonizing shock—as the steel severed his deltoid and muscle tissue. His grip on my throat broke. He stumbled backward, clutching his ruined shoulder, blood pouring between his manicured fingers and splattering across the pristine white carpet.

I rolled to my knees, coughing violently, gasping for air, and scooped up the silver cylinder containing the antidote from the floor.

"Ethan!" I screamed into my tactical radio. "I have the compound! Bridge the aircraft telemetry now!"

Ethan’s voice crackled through the comm, punctuated by heavy gunfire in the lower gantries. *"Claire! The lower decks are flooding! The idiot triggered the charges early—the platform is taking on water! We have five minutes before the main power generators blow!"*

Julian scrambled backward toward a hidden wall compartment, his face twisted in psychotic hatred. He hit an emergency override toggle.

A heavy blast door behind his desk slid open, revealing the pressurized access tube leading down to the private submarine pen.

"You think you've won?" Julian spat, blood bubbling over his lips as he backed into the hatch. "Even if you stabilize him, the world knows who you are now, Claire. The wolves I worked for will hunt you to the edge of the earth! You will never have peace!"

He slammed the emergency seal, the iron door locking shut with a hydraulic hiss.

"Claire!" Ethan shouted over the comm. "The aircraft pod is synced! Dock the cylinder into the gantry terminal or David dies right now!"