The Floral Handbag Secret That Exposed My Bride And Saved My Daughter From Exile / Chapter 91 / 100

Chapter 91 - The Abyss Below the Truss

The spotlight burned my retinas, turning the world into harsh monochrome shadows and blinding glare. The wash of rotor blades whipped ice pellets into my face like needle strikes. Evelyn leaned heavily against the warped fender of the crumpled sedan, her hand clutching her blood-soaked shoulder, teeth clenched against a scream. Behind her, Clara shielded the two infants beneath her heavy woolen coat, her back wedged tightly into the angle where the bridge girder met the icy asphalt.

"Three seconds, Julian!" the speaker blared over the turbine roar. "Drop the cylinder, or we sweep the deck!"

I looked down at the titanium cylinder. Within its carved casing lay the digital and biological codices that proved my daughter's rightful lineage and unmasked the syndicate of banking houses that had orchestrated my family's ruin. If it fell into their hands, our lives were forfeit anyway. If it was destroyed, my daughter would remain a nameless exile, hunted to extinction.

"Julian," Evelyn whispered, her voice barely audible over the gale. Her lips were blue, trembling with shock. "The lower catwalk... the maintenance hatch beneath the expansion joint."

My eyes flicked to the bridge deck. Ten feet to our right, half-buried under crushed road barriers, was a rusted iron hatch leading down into the structural marrow of the bridge—the inspection tunnels suspended directly over the black, churning waters of the Rhine.

"Cover your ears!" I shouted.

I raised my revolver, not at the gunship hovering above, but at the fuel cell leaking from the fractured undercarriage of our wrecked sedan. With three rounds left, I pulled the trigger once, twice. The first bullet sparked off the rim; the second punched straight into the pressurized fuel reservoir.

A deafening roar ruptured the night. A concussive wave of orange fire mushroomed outward, rolling up into the landing skids of the low-hovering gunship. The sudden thermal updraft tossed the heavy aircraft sideways, its tail rotor clipping the high-tension cables of the bridge tower with a shower of blinding sparks.

In the ensuing bedlam of smoke and falling debris, I lunged for the iron hatch. My boots slammed against the rusted locking lever, snapping the corroded bolt with a metallic shriek.

"Clara, now! Evelyn, move!"

Clara moved with the desperate agility of a mother protecting her young, slipping through the narrow opening into the pitch-black void below. I scooped Evelyn by her uninjured arm, half-carrying, half-lowering her down the iron ladder just as a hail of automatic gunfire raked the pavement where we had stood a fraction of a second before. I dropped through the hatch, slamming the heavy iron plate shut above us and sliding the secondary bolt home.