Chapter 22 - Blood in the Snow
The freezing wind hit me like a solid wall of iron.
Snow whipped horizontally across the ridge, blinding me instantly as my boots crunched into knee-deep powder.
Down the winding mountain staircase, twenty yards below, two figures were moving rapidly toward a hidden helipad carved into the cliff face.
Elena was supporting Arthur, moving with practiced military precision despite the icy descent.
"Arthur!" I shouted, the wind tearing the sound from my lungs.
Arthur didn't stop, but Elena glanced over her shoulder, leveling her silver pistol with lethal intent.
She fired three rounds into the blinding gale.
The first clipped the collar of my jacket; the second shattered the stone balustrade next to my ribs, peppering my face with stinging rock chips.
I dove behind a granite decorative urn, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
I had no weapon.
No tactical gear.
Nothing except the burning fury that had kept me alive when everyone thought I was a broken cripple.
A thunderous mechanical roar suddenly vibrated through the rock beneath my boots.
Twin turbine engines were winding up through the fog.
A sleek, matte-black Eurocopter was idling on the pad, its rotors kicking up a blinding cyclone of snow.
Through the blizzard, another armed guard emerged from the helicopter's side door, carrying a compact assault rifle.
He raised the weapon, sweeping the staircase for targets.
If I hesitated, they were gone.
I lunged from behind the urn, sliding down the snow-covered stone steps with reckless momentum.
The guard spotted me and brought his rifle up, but the icy wind tore at his balance.
Before he could pull the trigger, a thunderous rifle crack echoed from the terrace above.
The guard’s helmet snapped backward, and he collapsed onto the skids of the helicopter.
I looked up through the whiteout.
Marcus was leaning over the shattered balcony railing three levels above, an abandoned sniper rifle propped against his bleeding shoulder.
He gave me one brief, savage nod through the storm.
I didn't waste the opening.
I sprinted the last twenty yards across the slick concrete pad, closing the distance before Arthur could board the aircraft.
"Stop!" I bellowed.
Elena spun around to empty the remainder of her magazine into me, but the slide clicked back on an empty chamber.
Her eyes widened in rare panic.
She dropped the gun and pulled a ceramic combat blade from her boot, lunging at my throat with terrifying speed.
I caught her wrist inches from my jugular, the momentum driving both of us down into the frozen snow.
Elena fought like a viper, twisting her blade downward to sever the tendons in my arm.
"He created you, Julian!" she screamed, her breath hot and frantic against my cheek. "You're just another weapon in his arsenal!"
I drove my forehead directly into the bridge of her nose.
Cartilage cracked beneath the impact, and Elena’s grip slackened as blood sprayed across the snow.
I twisted her wrist until the blade clattered away onto the ice, then hurled her against the side of the helicopter strut.
She slumped into the snow, dazed and disoriented.
I turned back to the open cabin.
Arthur Sterling was already strapped into the leather passenger seat, watching me calmly through the open sliding door.
The pilot engaged full throttle; the rotors became a deafening shriek of displaced air.
The skids lifted two inches off the frozen concrete.
"Shoot me, Julian," Arthur said over the engine whine, gesturing to the dead guard's rifle lying in the snow.
His expression was utterly devoid of fear.
"Pick up the rifle and pull the trigger," he challenged, his voice cold and clear. "Prove to me that you have the stomach to inherit the Sterling name."
My hand hovered over the cold steel of the rifle.
The temptation was an agonizing, roaring fire in my chest.
One bullet would end twelve years of lies, five years of paralysis, and the nightmare that had destroyed my mother.
Arthur saw the hesitation in my eyes, and a slow, contemptuous smile spread across his lips.
"Still a boy," he whispered.
May you like
The helicopter banked violently over the precipice, rising into the swirling cloud bank.
Within seconds, the black machine was swallowed by the alpine blizzard, leaving nothing behind except the stench of burned kerosene and the red blood pooling on the white snow.
