Chapter 20 - The Iron Matriarch
The blast threw us against the mahogany desk. Glass shattered from the chandeliers, raining down like sharp winter frost.
Through the smoke of the breached entryway stepped a woman who did not look her eighty years. Eleanor Blackwood wore a floor-length tailored wool coat of pristine ivory, completely unstained by the slush outside. Her silver hair was pinned back in an immaculate, razor-sharp chignon. In her gloved right hand, she carried a heavy, pearl-handled walking cane; behind her stood six men in tactical body armor, their weapons raised and trained directly at our chests.
Behind Eleanor, looking disheveled and terrified, walked Martha. In Martha’s hands was a small, sealed biological specimen tube—the strand of my braid she had cut at the wedding reception.
"You always were a terribly melodramatic child, Nicholas," Eleanor said, her voice smooth, cultured, and devoid of any human warmth. She surveyed the broken room with mild distaste, her gaze settling finally on Evelyn.
"Eleanor," Evelyn said, her voice steady despite the guns leveled at her heart. "You’re late. The transfer is already logged in the Zurich servers."
Eleanor smiled—a slow, terrifying curve of her thin lips.
"Is it?" Eleanor asked softly. She gestured slightly with her cane.
One of the tactical officers stepped forward, raising an encrypted tablet toward Marcus Vance.
"The Swiss servers are currently offline, Marcus," Eleanor said purred. "A localized fiber-optic severance outside Zurich. Tragic, really. The international courts won't recognize an electronic transmission that never registered. And as for physical documentation..."
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She took two steps forward, her cane clicking rhythmically on the hardwood floor.
"There won't be any survivors here to present it."
