Chapter 7 - The Ambush on Route 9
The air in the ballroom seemed to completely vanish.
"A collision?" Julian shouted, jumping to his feet. "Was it an accident?"
"Miller says an unmarked black heavy-duty pickup truck broadsided the police cruiser," Chloe read frantically from the screen, her fingers scrolling through the encrypted text messages. "Two officers are injured. The transport van was forced off the embankment into the ravine. Victoria is missing. They believe she was extracted."
"Extracted?" Arthur’s voice lost all its legal calm. "In the middle of Boston? Thomas Cross wouldn't have that kind of paramilitary infrastructure on American soil unless—"
"Unless she had a contingency plan from the very beginning," Evelyn cut in, her instincts as a survivor taking complete control. She turned toward Arthur. "Lock down the manor. Cut the main gate power and activate the perimeter security protocols. If Victoria was extracted, she isn't heading for the airport. The ports are closed, the federal warrants are active, and she knows the wire transfer failed."
"Where would she go, Mother?" Julian asked, his voice laced with panic. "If she knows she lost the money, why wouldn't she run for the border?"
"Because she didn't just come for the money, Julian!" Evelyn snapped, walking briskly toward the grand hallway. "She came to erase us. A woman driven by thirty years of inherited hatred does not simply run away when her primary plan fails. She burns the house down on her way out."
Chloe followed closely behind her grandmother. "Grandmother, what do you mean? What else could she possibly want from here?"
Evelyn stopped at the base of the grand spiral staircase, looking up toward the second floor. Her face was grim. "The original charter documents for Vance Maritime Logistics. The bearer bonds locked in your grandfather's private vault in the study. Thomas Vance left behind thirty million dollars in physical, untraceable bearer bonds issued in the 1980s. Victoria knew they existed because her father originally co-signed the vault deposit box."
Julian went pale. "The study... Victoria insisted on having her own private key to the study last Christmas. She said she wanted to redecorate it as a surprise for my birthday!"
Before anyone could take another breath, the entire estate was plunged into total, suffocating darkness.
The grand chandeliers went out with a sharp pop. The hum of the air conditioning ceased. The decorative garden floodlights outside vanished, leaving the mansion illuminated only by the violent flashes of lightning from the approaching thunderstorm.
"Backup generators!" Arthur called out, pulling a tactical flashlight from his briefcase and clicking it on, cutting a stark white beam through the gloom. "The auxiliary power should kick in within ten seconds!"
Ten seconds passed.
Nothing happened.
"The breakers were manually severed," Evelyn said, her voice chillingly calm despite the darkness. "She's already inside the grounds."
Suddenly, the deafening sound of shattering glass echoed from the second-floor conservatory above them.
Rain immediately began pouring into the upper hallway, the sound of the storm roaring through the breach. Footsteps—hurried, heavy, and deliberate—moved across the hardwood floors upstairs.
Julian moved instinctively, stepping in front of Chloe and Evelyn, pushing them behind him against the mahogany wall. For the first time in his life, the weak, indecisive man was gone. The primal instinct of a father protecting his child took over.
"Arthur, stay with them," Julian whispered, his hand reaching for a heavy silver candlestick sitting on the foyer console. "I'm going up."
"No, Julian," Evelyn ordered, grabbing his arm with astonishing strength. "You are not going up there alone. We don't know who pulled her out of that cruiser."
"I have to, Mother!" Julian hissed, his eyes locked on the dark curve of the staircase. "I brought this evil into our home. I allowed her to sleep in our bed, to sit at our table, to poison our lives. If someone is going to face her, it has to be me."
"You won't have to face her alone, Julian," a voice rang out from the top of the stairs.
A figure emerged from the shadows at the landing. Illuminated by a sudden flash of lightning through the skylight, Victoria stood at the top of the spiral staircase.
Her burgundy dress was torn, covered in mud and blood from the vehicle collision. Her forehead was bleeding from a deep gash near her hairline, the crimson liquid dripping down into her left eye. But in her right hand, she held something far more terrifying than a bottle of poison.
It was Thomas Vance’s antique .38 caliber revolver—taken directly from the display case in the study.
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Beside her stood a towering man in a drenched tactical jacket, his face obscured by a balaclava, carrying a heavy pry bar.
"Happy birthday, Evelyn," Victoria whispered down into the dark, cocking the hammer of the revolver back with a heavy, sickening click. "Did you really think a few federal agents could stop a family debt thirty-five years in the making?"
