Chapter 29 - The Sister's Guillotine
The wind howling over the cliff seemed to freeze in time.
Ryan stood between two generations of sociopaths—the mother who had tried to murder his unborn child on marble tiles, and the half-sister who had orchestrated a federal slaughter to inherit an empire built on blood.
“Margaret, put the gun down,” Ryan ordered, his voice commanding, stepping slightly to shield Emily and the baby. “Federal agents are twenty minutes behind us. If you pull that trigger, there are no appeals. No comfortable prison hospitals. You will spend the rest of your life in an ADX Florence supermax cell until you rot.”
Margaret’s lips curled into a hideous, grotesque sneer. “You think I care about a prison cell, Ryan? Look at me! Look at what you’ve done to the Vance name! The press calls me a monster! The board of directors stripped my portrait from the lobby! Julian is dead, and this… this foreign viper tried to feed me to the wolves!”
Margaret shifted her aim. The trembling barrel of the .44 caliber revolver settled directly on Emily, who was clutching Grace against the steel floor.
“It all started with *her*,” Margaret hissed, venom dripping from every syllable. “If you had married the DuPont girl, if you had married within our class, our family would have endured! She poisoned you against your own flesh and blood!”
Genevieve, pinned beneath Ryan’s arm, saw her opening.
With a serpentine twist of her body, Genevieve drove her heel into Ryan’s wounded forearm, tearing the fresh gash wide open. Ryan hissed in pain, his grip loosening for a fraction of a second.
Genevieve broke free, lunging forward—not toward safety, but directly toward Margaret.
“You pathetic old hag!” Genevieve screamed.
Margaret panicked and pulled the trigger.
The gunshot was deafening inside the cavern, echoing like a cannon blast off the granite walls. The heavy lead slug tore into Genevieve’s left shoulder, spinning her around and throwing her against the edge of the platform.
Genevieve collapsed onto one knee, gasping, clutching her bloody shoulder. But she didn't stop. With a feral, terrifying screech, Genevieve tackled Margaret around the knees, dragging the elderly matriarch down onto the slick, fuel-soaked steel grating.
The two women rolled in a tangle of silk, blood, and screaming fury. The revolver was knocked free, skittering across the grating and dropping over the five-hundred-foot ledge into the dark waters of Lake Champlain below.
“I am the true heir!” Genevieve snarled, her fingers wrapping around Margaret’s throat, pressing the matriarch’s head down against the rusted edge of the platform. “You gave me away! You erased me! I will take your breath just like you took my name!”
Margaret choked, her hands feebly scratching at Genevieve’s face, her eyes bulging in pure terror as she realized her daughter truly possessed no human limit.
“Ryan!” Emily cried out, standing up with Grace secured in her coat. “Ryan, she’s going to kill her!”
Ryan looked at the two women.
Part of him—the dark, vengeful part inherited from Charles Vance—wanted to step back, cross his arms, and let them destroy each other. It would be justice. Poetic, brutal, absolute justice.
Then Grace whimpered against Emily’s chest.
Ryan looked at his daughter’s innocent, wide eyes reflecting the starlight. He looked at Emily, whose eyes begged him not to let this darkness consume him.
If he let them die, he would be no different than the father who had orchestrated this war from beyond the grave.
Ryan surged forward. He grabbed Genevieve by the back of her cashmere collar, hauling her off Margaret with brutal, overwhelming force.
“That’s enough!” Ryan roared, slamming Genevieve face-down onto the steel platform and pinning her wrists behind her back with his knee. He ripped the heavy zip-ties from his tactical vest and bound Genevieve’s wrists and ankles in unbreakable loops.
Margaret lay on the grating, coughing violently, clutching her bruised throat, weeping in pathetic, ragged gasps.
Above them, the deafening thrum of heavy military rotor blades shook the cavern.
Two massive FBI Black Hawk helicopters descended from the clouds, their high-intensity searchlights bathing the cliff platform in brilliant, blinding white illumination.
Tactical SWAT operators in full gear rappelled down thick ropes, boots hitting the platform with precision thuds, assault rifles raised.
Agent Thorne was the third man down the rope. He unclipped his carabiner, his eyes sweeping across the smoking, crippled helicopter, the bound Genevieve, the weeping Margaret, and finally landing on Ryan, Emily, and baby Grace standing together in the center of the light.
Thorne lowered his weapon, exhaling a long, shuddering breath into the freezing night air.
“Secure the perimeter!” Thorne bellowed to his team. “Get medics on that platform now!”
Ryan stepped toward Thorne, his wounded arm dripping blood onto the steel grating, his eyes exhausted but clear.
May you like
“They’re all yours, Thorne,” Ryan said quietly. “The matriarch. The ghost sister. The whole rotten legacy.”
***
