Chapter 8 - The Viper’s Nest
The announcement hung in the air of the Brooklyn apartment like ozone before a lightning strike.
“How could she escape?” Emma demanded, her hand gripping the edge of the laminate counter until her fingers went white. “She was surrounded by armed federal marshals!”
“Vanessa Sterling does not rely on local lawyers, Emma,” Adrian said, his fingers flying across the encrypted screen of his device with blinding speed. “Her mother’s family controls half the commercial maritime terminals in Rotterdam. When Julian’s assets were seized on Thursday, the Dutch accounts remained untouched. She bought an extraction team from a private military firm in Virginia forty-eight hours before the gala even started. She had a contingency plan for my survival.”
He tapped the screen three times, locking down the communication channel, then looked up at her with an intensity that brooked no argument.
“We have five minutes before this block is compromised. We are leaving. Now.”
“I’m not running with you, Adrian,” Emma said, though the tremor in her voice betrayed her defiance.
“This isn't about us, Emma!” Adrian yelled, the sudden roar of his voice shaking the small apartment. He stepped forward, grabbing her by the shoulders with iron authority, his face inches from hers. “Vanessa does not want to negotiate. She does not want to flee to Switzerland. She knows that as long as I draw breath, the federal warrants will follow her to every extradition port on earth. But she also knows that the only leverage on this planet that can make Adrian Blackwood surrender his voting shares... is your heartbeat.”
Emma stared into his dilated pupils, seeing the unadulterated terror of a man who was watching his only weakness being exposed to the wolves.
Before she could answer, a dull, muffled thump echoed from the roof directly above their heads.
It was not the sound of wind or settling brick. It was the heavy, coordinated impact of tactical boots hitting tar paper.
Adrian didn't curse. He didn't hesitate.
In one fluid motion, he swept Emma off her feet, ignoring her startled gasp as he kicked her apartment door shut and slammed the heavy brass deadbolt home. He carried her across the tiny room into the narrow bathroom, setting her down gently inside the cast-iron clawfoot tub.
“Stay low,” he commanded, his voice dropping into a deadly, rhythmic whisper. “Cast iron stops nine-millimeter rounds. Do not stand up under any circumstances.”
“Adrian, what about you?” she cried, grabbing the hem of his cashmere coat as he pulled away.
Adrian reached behind his back, into the waistband of his tactical trousers, and pulled out a matte-black Sig Sauer P226. He racked the slide with a crisp, mechanical clack, chambering a hollow-point round.
“I’m going to remind Miss Sterling why my grandfather called our family the iron masters,” Adrian said.
The living room window shattered into a thousand shards of glittering glass.
A stun grenade arched through the curtains, hitting the pine floorboards with a dull wooden clatter.
Adrian reacted with the speed of an apex predator. He lunged backward into the bathroom, slammed the heavy oak door shut with his shoulder, and threw his weight against the wood just as the grenade detonated.
BANG.
The concussion was a physical hammer that rattled the tiles off the bathroom wall and blew the electrical sockets out in a shower of sparks. The smell of magnesium and burning curtains flooded beneath the doorframe.
Through the ringing in his ears, Adrian heard the splintering crunch of the fire escape window being kicked in, followed by the rapid, suppressed pop-pop-pop of submachine guns spraying the empty living room.
Adrian didn't wait behind the door to be boxed in.
He wrenched the bathroom door open, stepped out into the smoke-filled hallway, and fired three controlled shots through the drywall toward the window frame.
A muffled groan echoed through the mist. A heavy body crashed through the remnants of Emma’s pine dining table.
Adrian surged into the living room, moving low through the swirling gray smoke. Two men in black tactical gear and night-vision goggles were maneuvering toward the bathroom door. Adrian eliminated the first with two center-mass shots that dropped the contractor instantly onto the shattered floorboards.
The second man swung his compact carbine toward Adrian’s chest.
Adrian didn't try to shoot. He closed the four feet of distance with terrifying momentum, swatting the barrel aside with his left forearm while driving the heavy steel slide of his Sig Sauer into the man’s throat.
The contractor gasped, dropping his weapon as his trachea collapsed. Adrian caught him by the tactical vest, spun him around, and used him as a human shield just as a third mercenary burst through the hallway door.
A burst of nine-millimeter rounds tore into the contractor’s back, the impacts jolting through Adrian’s arms.
Adrian fired a single, surgical round over the dying man’s shoulder. The third attacker dropped backward into the hallway with a clean entry wound between his eyebrows.
Silence descended over the fourth floor.
The only sound was the hissing of the radiator and the crackle of a small fire consuming the curtains by the window.
Adrian dropped the dead mercenary. He stood in the center of Emma’s destroyed apartment, his weapon raised, his eyes scanning the smoke with lethal precision. Blood was dripping from a shallow shrapnel cut on his left forearm, but he didn't even notice the pain.
“Clear,” a calm, icy feminine voice echoed from the fire escape landing.
Adrian swung his weapon toward the shattered window.
Vanessa Sterling stepped through the frame, stepping over the body of her fallen contractor with the delicate disdain of someone avoiding a puddle on the sidewalk.
She wasn't wearing her burgundy gown tonight. She wore a tailored black tactical jumpsuit, her hair pulled back into a severe braid, her lips painted blood-red. In her gloved right hand, she held a compact machine pistol aimed directly at Adrian’s heart.
“You always were remarkably difficult to kill, Adrian,” Vanessa purred, her eyes glittering with manic triumph.
“Vanessa,” Adrian said, not lowering his weapon an inch. “You should have stayed on the boat to Rotterdam.”
“And leave my inheritance in your hands?” she laughed, a wild, sharp sound that carried the rot of complete madness. “Julian was an idiot. He thought he could outmaneuver you in a boardroom. I always knew the only way to deal with an Adrian Blackwood was to put two inches of lead through his skull.”
She shifted her gaze toward the closed bathroom door.
“Where is the little nurse, Adrian? Hiding in the closet? Tell her to come out. I’d love for her to see how her miracle ends.”
“She isn't part of this, Vanessa,” Adrian said, taking a slow, deliberate half-step to his left, placing his body squarely between Vanessa’s barrel and the bathroom door.
“She became part of this the second she grabbed that wheelchair, darling,” Vanessa sneered, her finger tightening on the trigger. “Drop the gun, Adrian. Drop it, or I empty this entire thirty-round magazine through that cheap hollow-core door.”
Adrian’s silver eyes narrowed to razor points.
He didn't move. He didn't drop the weapon.
For three agonizing seconds, the two former lovers stood motionless in the burning room, their weapons locked in a standoff that could only end in blood.
Then, the bathroom door creaked.
Emma Vance stepped out from the shadows, her face smeared with soot, her ebony cane raised like a club.
“Looking for me, Vanessa?” Emma whispered.
May you like
Vanessa’s eyes flicked toward the noise for a fraction of a second.
That was all Adrian needed.
