Chapter 19 - The Underground Railroad
Before Victor could step within arm's reach of Emily, the warehouse roof exploded in a shower of corrugated steel, shattered glass, and blinding magnesium flashbang grenades.
*CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!*
High-caliber sniper rounds punched through the metal walls with thunderous concussions, dropping Victor's three mercenaries before they could even draw their assault rifles.
"Breaching! East sector clear!"
Daniel dropped through the skylight on a tactical rappel line, landing in a combat crouch. In his right hand was a suppressed tactical rifle; in his left, an industrial flash-flare that he hurled into the eyes of the remaining guards.
Victor Drake shrieked in rage, diving behind a row of rusted shipping containers as Daniel swept through the smoke like a vengeful wraith.
"Daniel!" Emily cried out.
Daniel slid across the concrete, severing Emily's handcuffs with an industrial bolt-cutter in one savage motion. "We have to move now! The NYPD thinks you're a fugitive, and the FBI is tracking this location by satellite!"
"Eleanor—is she alive?!" Emily gasped, rubbing her raw, bleeding wrists as Daniel pulled her to her feet.
"Barely. She’s awake, and she gave us the vault codes," Daniel said, his face blackened with soot and sweat, his wounded shoulder bleeding through his ripped tactical shirt. "Cassandra isn't heading for a boardroom, Emily. She’s at the private runway at Republic Airport in Long Island. Her private jet is fueled, and she has Leo."
Emily felt the entire world narrow down to a single, pinpoint of incandescent rage.
"She has my brother?" Emily’s voice dropped into a terrifying, dead silence.
"She took him from the military clinic twenty minutes ago using a forged federal warrant signed by the corrupt judge in her pocket," Daniel said, handing Emily a loaded 9mm Glock pistol. "If that jet leaves the runway, she lands in a non-extradition sanctuary in Dubai within ten hours, and you will never see Leo again."
Emily looked at the weapon in her hands. The diner waitress who once cried in a walk-in freezer over unpaid medical bills died right there on that bloodstained warehouse floor.
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She racked the slide with a crisp, lethal *clack*.
"Get the car," Emily said, her emerald eyes burning with an ancient, unforgiving fire. "Tonight, the Sterling dynasty ends for good."
