Chapter 6 - The Final Stand
Time seemed to fracture into slow motion.
Victoria raised the pistol, her arm shaking slightly, her finger tightening against the curved metal of the trigger.
Rosa lunged forward, trying to grab Victoria’s arm, but Victoria swung the butt of the gun downward with brutal force, striking Rosa across the temple. Rosa crumpled to the tile floor with a suppressed groan.
"Rosa!" Grace screamed.
"Shut up!" Victoria snarled, swinging the barrel directly toward Lily’s chest. "Step away from the child, Grace. Let's see how much your noble mother act protects her from lead."
Grace didn't step away. Instead, she pushed Lily behind her, spreading her arms wide, shielding her daughter with her own body just as she had done on that freezing kitchen floor days ago.
"Shoot me, then," Grace whispered, her voice steady, filled with a fierce, unbreakable maternal grace. "You've already tried to take everything else. Take me."
Victoria’s finger whitened on the trigger.
Click.
The heavy front door blasted open with a deafening crash of splintering wood.
"DROP THE WEAPON!"
Nathan’s roar echoed through the mansion like thunder.
He didn't hesitate. He didn't stop to negotiate. Nathan hurled his heavy leather briefcase directly at Victoria’s head with all the force of his athletic frame.
The briefcase caught Victoria square in the shoulder, throwing her aim off by crucial inches just as she pulled the trigger.
BANG.
The gunshot shattered the kitchen window, sending shards of glass raining down like glittering diamonds across the tile floor.
Before Victoria could recover her balance, Nathan was across the room. He slammed her against the marble countertop, dislodging the pistol from her grip and kicking it across the floor into the far corner.
Victoria thrashed and screamed like a wild animal, clawing at his face, but Nathan pinned her arms behind her with iron-clad authority, pressing her down until federal marshals—who had trailed him closely up the driveway—burst through the kitchen doors with drawn weapons.
"She's armed! Take her!" Nathan barked, his chest heaving as he handed the struggling, spitting woman over to the federal agents.
Two marshals grabbed Victoria by the biceps, snapping steel handcuffs onto her wrists with brutal efficiency.
As they dragged her screaming toward the front entrance, Victoria twisted her head back, her eyes locked on Nathan with pure, undiluted poison.
"You'll never be free of me, Nathan! The family name is rotted to the core! You're just like your father!"
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The heavy oak door slammed shut, cutting off her voice completely.
Silence swallowed the kitchen, broken only by the sound of shattered glass, Rosa’s quiet groans as she pushed herself up from the floor, and the soft, trembling sobs of little Lily.
