Chapter 9 - The Blood on the Altar
"Julian!" Victoria coughed, leaning against the concrete wall, her face pale from blood loss. "The detonator. Blow the south wing. Collapse the floor beneath the bunker."
Julian’s face was bruised, his expensive suit ruined, but his eyes were bright with a manic, cornered insanity. "Uncle Arthur thought he locked me in the wine cellar. He forgot who designed the security bypass for the vault."
Rocco stood at the top of the landing, his weapon trained steadily on Julian’s forehead. "Put it down, Julian. If you drop the floor, you drop the entire central tower. You die too."
"I was dead the moment your little field doctor touched Elena's arm," Julian snarled, his thumb hovering over the armed toggle switch. "The board knows. The banks know. The moment that baby breathes, the trust transfers automatically to Elena’s guardianship. I become an employee. A beggar!"
Behind Rocco, inside the sealed medical suite, a sound cut through the chaos, through the smoke, through the smell of blood and burning cordite.
A thin, wailing cry.
The sharp, indignant shriek of a newborn child taking its first lungful of air.
Rocco’s heart stopped. For a fraction of a second, the battlefield vanished. A boy. Thomas’s son. Elena’s child. The rightful heir to an empire built on blood had just arrived in the middle of a warzone.
Julian heard it too. His eyes widened in frantic terror. "No. No!"
His thumb slammed down on the toggle.
Rocco fired.
The nine-millimeter round struck Julian dead between the eyes. His head snapped back, his body pitching over the railing of the stairwell, falling four stories down into the darkness of the central utility shaft.
The detonator flew from his lifeless fingers, clattering onto the concrete steps.
The timer on the console screen was glowing red.
*00:03... 00:02... 00:01...*
Rocco didn't try to disarm it. He kicked the console with all his strength, sending it hurtling down the shaft after Julian.
A second later, a concussive shockwave rocked the lower levels. The concrete floor under Rocco’s feet shuddered violently. A blast of heat roared up the shaft, blowing the emergency doors off their hinges, but the structural integrity of the penthouse held.
Victoria let out a pitiful moan, collapsing onto the steps, her strength completely gone.
May you like
Rocco walked down, grabbed her by the collar of her ruined trench coat, and dragged her up the stairs into the smoke-filled penthouse like a bundle of discarded rags.
***
