Chapter 33 - The Breaking Point
Julian’s grip on Alexander’s throat tightened until the older man’s face turned deep purple.
The entire boardroom was in utter chaos; corporate executives were fleeing toward the emergency stairwells, while security guards stood frozen, terrified to intervene.
"Julian! Don't kill him!" Ross shouted, his gun still covering the room. "We need him alive to call them off!"
Julian slammed Alexander violently onto the mahogany table, pinning him down with one hand while snatching the black transmitter from his fingers.
"Call them off," Julian ordered, his voice terrifying in its quiet rage. "Call them off now, or I will dismantle you piece by piece."
Alexander gasped for air, his lips curling into a bloody, defiant sneer.
"It's an automated kill-order, Julian," Alexander wheezed, blood flecking his teeth. "There is no recall code. The moment this transmitter loses connection with the master satellite, the order executes."
Julian stared at the blinking red light on the device.
"You suicidal bastard," Julian growled.
"I promised you thirty years ago, when your father cast me out," Alexander whispered, his eyes wild with madness. "If I cannot rule the Sterling empire, no one of your line will survive to inherit it! Your wife dies today. Your child dies today."
Julian didn't hesitate.
He struck Alexander with a brutal, concussive right cross that knocked the patriarch completely unconscious, leaving him bleeding across the scattered corporate documents.
Julian turned to Ross, his eyes burning with frantic energy.
"Get on the satellite link to Marcus right now!" Julian shouted, sprinting toward the private executive elevator. "Tell them to abandon the bunker and move into the deep woods!"
Ross scrambled to hit the speed-dial on his tactical phone as the elevator doors closed.
"It's ringing!" Ross yelled over the whir of the descending elevator. "Marcus, pick up! Pick up the damn phone!"
Static crackled through the speaker, followed by the terrifying sound of heavy automatic gunfire and explosive detonations.
"Julian!" Marcus's voice screamed through the receiver, barely audible over deafening blasts. "They hit us from the ocean side! Underwater infiltration! They blew the sea cave entrance!"
Julian grabbed the phone from Ross's hand.
"Marcus! Where is Elara?" Julian demanded, his voice cracking with desperation.
"She’s in the reinforced panic vault inside the radar tower!" Marcus shouted, the sound of concrete shattering around him echoing through the line. "I'm holding the main corridor with two men! But they have heavy breaching charges! Julian, they're not trying to capture her—they're bringing the whole cliff down!"
"Hold them for fifteen minutes!" Julian roared into the phone. "I’m in the air right now!"
"Fifteen minutes is an eternity here!" Marcus fired a deafening burst from his weapon. "They have thermite! They're burning through the vault door! Elara—get down!"
A massive explosion tore through the speaker, followed by a sickening high-pitched whine.
The line went dead.
"Marcus! Marcus!" Julian screamed into the dead receiver.
Nothing. Only the hollow hum of disconnected satellites.
The elevator slammed into the basement garage.
Julian sprinted out, diving into the passenger seat of the lead armored Cadillac.
"Teterboro Airport!" Julian ordered the driver, his voice shaking with a feral fury he had never felt in his entire life. "Break every traffic law in this city! If we don't clear the runway in ten minutes, I'll put a bullet through your head myself!"
The Cadillac tore out of the underground parking garage, its supercharged engine screaming as it smashed through the security barrier and launched onto the crowded streets of Manhattan.
Ross sat in the back, working furiously on his tactical tablet, rerouting private military assets from three different states.
"I’ve mobilized our private tactical air unit from Las Vegas," Ross said, his fingers flying across the screen. "Two Black Hawk gunships are inbound to Point Sur. Estimated time of arrival: thirty-four minutes."
"That's too late!" Julian yelled, slamming his fist into the reinforced dashboard, cracking the display screen. "They're burning through the door right now!"
Julian looked at his watch.
It had taken him thirty years to build an empire, to avenge his father, and to find the one woman who brought light into his dark, ruthless soul.
And in thirty minutes, an ancient ghost from the past was going to erase it all.
May you like
"Faster!" Julian roared at the driver as the car swerved around a line of yellow cabs, hurtling toward the Lincoln Tunnel at ninety miles per hour. "Faster!"
***
