Chapter 61 - The Fireball in the Sky
The orange glare painted the wet tarmac in the hue of fresh blood.
Ethan’s ears rang with a deafening, hollow roar as the shockwave from northern New Jersey rolled across the Hudson River, rattling the chain-link perimeter fence of the private heliport. The night air, thick with rain and kerosene fumes, suddenly smelled of burning magnesium and incinerated dreams. His breath hitched in his throat, freezing into a jagged shard of ice.
*Pregnant.*
The word echoed inside his skull, louder than the thunder rolling across the low Manhattan clouds. Olivia was carrying his child. And Victoria had just blown her out of the sky.
"Look at you," Victoria purred against his cheek, her voice dripping with venomous delight. Her expensive silk coat was soaked through, plastered to her skin, but her amethyst eyes burned with triumphant malice. "The mighty Ethan Sterling, brought to his knees by a single flick of my thumb. Did you really think you could play god with me? Did you think you could strip me of my empire and walk away to play house with that penniless nobody?"
Ethan didn’t speak. A terrifying silence opened inside him—an abyss so vast and cold that even grief could not bridge it. His hand, still wrapped around Victoria’s wrist, tightened until the delicate bones ground against one another.
Victoria gasped, the smug smile fracturing into a grimace of agony. "Ethan... you’re breaking my arm—"
"I should tear your throat out," Ethan whispered. His voice was barely audible above the pelting rain, but it carried a lethal, flat cadence that made the matriarch’s eyes flicker with real fear for the first time. "I should throw you into the Hudson and watch you sink into the mud where you belong."
Sirens wailed in the distance—the shrill, synchronized screech of NYPD cruisers and federal intercept vehicles breaching the marina gates. Headlights slashed through the rain-slicked darkness, blinding them in sweeping arcs of white and cobalt blue.
"Do it, then!" Victoria spat, though her breath came in ragged, terrified gasps as Ethan hauled her off the helicopter's side and slammed her face-first onto the hood of a waiting black town car. "Kill me! Prove to the whole world that you’re Charles’s true son! A butcher! But it won't bring them back! Eleanor burned. Olivia burned. And that little bastard in her womb turned to cinders before it could draw a single breath!"
A red mist descended over Ethan’s vision. His fist pulled back, every muscle in his back coiling to strike, to shatter the mocking porcelain face of the woman who had birthed him only to destroy everything he loved.
"Ethan! Stand down! Step away from her now!"
The voice cut through the tempest. Special Agent Marcus Cole sprinted across the tarmac, service weapon drawn, flanked by six heavily armed tactical officers from the Federal Financial Crimes and Terrorism Task Force.
Ethan froze, his fist inches from Victoria’s nose. Rain cascaded down his face, washing away the blood from the cut on his cheekbone where Victoria’s diamond ring had torn his flesh. Slowly, deliberately, he let his hand drop.
"She triggered the detonator," Ethan said, his voice terrifyingly calm as he stepped back. "A Gulfstream IV, registration Victor-Echo-Seven-One. Out of Teterboro. My sister and my wife were on that plane."
Cole looked up at the fiery smear still smoldering behind the New Jersey cloud cover, horror dawning in his hardened eyes. He turned to his officers. "Cuff her. Maximum security restraints. Bag her hands for explosive residue. Move!"
Victoria laughed as cold steel snapped around her wrists. "Search the wreckage, Agent Cole! Gather up the teeth and the bone fragments! That’s all Ethan has left of his family! I won! In the end, the Sterling dynasty dies with me!"
Two tactical officers dragged Victoria toward an armored transport. She fought every step, her manic laughter echoing off the wet asphalt until the heavy doors slammed shut, swallowing the sound.
Cole grabbed Ethan’s shoulder, his grip tight and urgent. "Ethan, listen to me. Port Authority and the FAA are already responding to the Teterboro crash. We don't have confirmation of casualties yet."
"It blew at two thousand feet, Marcus," Ethan said, his eyes fixed on the distant smoke plume rising into the storm. "Nothing survives a mid-air detonation at that altitude. Nothing."
His phone buzzed violently in his inner coat pocket.
With trembling fingers, Ethan pulled it out, expecting a call from the FAA or the emergency morgue. But the screen flashed with an encrypted, unidentified satellite number.
Ethan swiped to answer, his voice hoarse. "Speak."
A static-laden breath came through the receiver, followed by a voice that was faint, terrified, and undeniably alive.
"Ethan... Ethan, don't go to the runway... they didn't put us on the jet..."
Ethan’s heart slammed against his ribs. "Olivia? Olivia, where are you?!"
A sharp crash sounded on the other end, followed by the muffled scream of Eleanor, before a man’s harsh voice broke through the line:
"You survived your mother's bomb, Mr. Sterling. But if you want to see the mother of your child draw another breath, you will be at Grand Central Terminal, Track 34, in twenty minutes. Alone. Or we deliver her to you in pieces."
May you like
The line went dead.
***
