Chapter 35 - Blood in the High Tower
The concrete stairwell was plunged into emergency red lighting. The sirens here were louder, an oscillating wail that vibrated in the soles of my shoes.
Behind the heavy fire door, we could hear the muffled thuds of heavy-caliber rounds striking the reinforced steel. Elena’s private security was trying to blow the lock.
"We have three minutes before they breach that door with cutting torches," Nicholas said, checking the magazine of Julianne’s pistol. "Eighty flights down to the lobby. The express elevators are locked down by Elena's override."
"And Eleanor?" I panted, wiping the chemical residue of the halon gas from my eyes. "You left your mother in there with them!"
"Eleanor made her choice twenty years ago when she ordered the hit on your mother," Nicholas snapped, his face bathed in crimson light. "Whatever happens to her in that room is twenty years overdue."
"And what about me, Nicholas?" I stepped back from him, pressing my spine against the cold concrete wall. "What was my choice? You dragged me into this bloodbath! You let that woman humiliate me at our wedding reception! You let her cut my hair like a slaughtered animal!"
Nicholas paused. For the first time all night, the cold, impenetrable mask slipped. His eyes flickered with something raw—something that looked dangerously like agony.
"The braid was the only thing keeping you alive, Clara," he said, his voice dropping below the roar of the alarms. "The platinum filament woven into your hair wasn't an heirloom. It was an active transponder and a genetic cipher container that Arthur gave your mother before she died. Eleanor didn't cut it to humiliate you. She cut it because she recognized the weave. She knew that as long as you wore that braid, Arthur’s final trust could be executed. She cut it to destroy the evidence of your existence."
"And you brought me straight to the machine that needed it!"
"Because it’s the only machine that can permanently revoke Elena's claim!" he yelled back, stepping toward me. "The Sterling line isn't a family, Clara! It’s a corporate syndicate built on blood, extortion, and offshore shell companies! As long as Elena lived, she would have hunted you to the ends of the earth to get that cipher! The only way to stop her was to use the cipher to trigger the *Covenant Clause*—to liquidate everything and burn the entire network to the ground!"
Before I could answer, a tremendous explosion ripped through the door behind us.
The heavy steel fire door buckled inward, blown off its upper hinge by a shaped charge. Black smoke and heat billowed into the stairwell.
Through the smoke, two men in black tactical gear stepped through, submachine guns raised.
Nicholas didn't hesitate. He stepped in front of me, raised his stolen pistol, and fired three controlled double-taps.
The first operative dropped instantly. The second managed to squeeze off a burst before Nicholas’s round caught him in the throat. Bullets ricocheted wildly off the concrete walls, sparks flying inches from my head. Concrete chips sprayed across my face, slicing into my cheek.
"Down! Now!" Nicholas grabbed my hand, and this time, I didn't pull away. Survival overtook fury.
We sprinted down the concrete stairs, spiraling downward through the blood-red gloom as the sound of boots echoed from the floor above us. Elena was sending her entire vanguard.
We hit the seventy-fifth floor landing when the door burst open in front of us.
I screamed, preparing for another hail of bullets.
Instead, a hand reached out, grabbing Nicholas by the lapel and yanking us into the shadows of the utility corridor.
"Get in, you fool, before they turn this stairwell into a slaughterhouse!"
It was Eleanor.
Her diamond necklace was gone. Her silk dress was stained with soot and blood from a deep laceration across her temple, her perfectly coiffed hair wild and disheveled. In her trembling hand, she still clutched the smoking derringer.
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"Mother?" Nicholas froze, his weapon trained on her chest.
"Put the gun away, Nicholas," Eleanor wheezed, clutching her side as if her ribs were broken. "Your psychotic sister just executed three board members who refused to sign the transfer. If we don't get to the sub-basement before she initiates the building purge, none of us are leaving the Loop alive."
