Chapter 5 - Blood on the Snowmobile
"What is this?! Security!" Victoria shrieked, coughing violently as the tear gas hit her eyes and throat.
The heavy glass window overlooking the terrace exploded inward.
A figure clad in black tactical gear and a ballistic mask swung into the room on a steel cable, boots shattering the mahogany coffee table upon landing.
The first private nurse lunged forward; the intruder sidestepped, drove a gloved palm into the nurse's diaphragm, and dropped him instantly. The second nurse drew a concealed taser, but the intruder caught his wrist, twisted it until the bone cracked, and drove his knee into the man's jaw.
Victoria scrambled backward, coughing, her sable coat ruined with soot and glass shards. "Who are you?! I am Victoria Sterling! I will have you hunted down and—"
The intruder stepped through the smoke, ripping off his mask.
Victoria’s voice died in her throat. Her eyes dilated in absolute, unadulterated terror.
"Daniel..." she gasped, stumbling against the wall. "You... you're dead!"
Daniel Reyes stood before her. His face was stitched, his arm heavily braced, his eyes burning with the cold, unyielding rage of a resurrected demon.
"I told you, Victoria," Daniel growled, his voice deep and vibrating like thunder. "Peasants are remarkably hard to kill."
He didn't waste time with her. He pulled Emily from the bed, wrapping her in a thermal assault blanket.
"Daniel! You came back!" Emily wept, burying her face into his chest, feeling the steady, rhythmic beat of her brother’s heart.
"I told you I'd never leave you, Em," he murmured softly.
He unhooked a rapid-release harness from his vest and strapped Emily securely to his chest. He turned to Victoria, who was reaching into her designer purse for a small silver revolver.
Daniel drew a combat knife and hurled it.
The blade struck the center of Victoria's purse, pinning it firmly to the mahogany wall three inches from her fingers. She shrieked, falling to her knees on the glass-strewn floor.
"Tell Julian the truth," Daniel warned, leaning down until his shadow consumed her. "Because if he doesn't hear it from you, he will hear it from the entire world tomorrow night."
Daniel kicked the remaining glass out of the window frame. He clipped his harness to the extraction cable attached to the winch of a modified black Bell 407 helicopter hovering fifty feet above the terrace in the swirling snowstorm.
"Hold on, little sister," Daniel said.
May you like
Emily clung to him as the cable snapped taut, yanking them into the freezing night sky, leaving Victoria Sterling screaming helplessly amidst the smoke and ruins of her empire.
***
