Chapter 29 - The Trap Closes
Ava spun around, raising her .38 with deadly instinct, but a blur of motion struck her wrist with the precision of a surgical scalpel.
The revolver flew from her grip, clattering over the edge of the catwalk and plummeting eighty floors down into the screaming crowd below. A wave of agonizing pain radiated up her arm as an iron grip locked her against the reinforced railing of the catwalk.
Standing before her was not one of Julian’s tactical cleaners.
It was Detective Frank Vance.
His trench coat was open, revealing a tactical vest beneath. His service weapon remained holstered, but his face was an unreadable mask of cold, bureaucratic resolve.
"Step away from the ledge, Ava," Vance said, his voice flat, completely devoid of the exhausted empathy he had projected at the shipyard.
"You," Ava gasped, struggling against his grip, her heart seizing with betrayal. "Nicholas was right. You’re the architect’s shepherd. You’ve been working for them the entire time."
"I don't work for Julian," Vance said quietly, keeping his body positioned between Ava and the service door where Oliver was hidden. "Julian was an expendable tool. A bull in a china shop meant to draw the media’s attention and flush out the board’s hidden loyalties."
"Then who do you work for?" Ava spat, blood trickling from where her knuckles had scraped against the steel grating.
From the shadows of the catwalk’s maintenance elevator, the heavy hydraulic doors slid open with a smooth, silent hiss.
A man stepped out into the dim red emergency light.
He was tall, impeccably groomed, wearing a tailored charcoal overcoat with a silk scarf knotted at his throat. He leaned slightly on an ebony cane capped with a silver falcon’s head. His face was weathered, lined with the severe, aristocratic arrogance that had dominated global commerce for forty years.
On his right third finger, catching the dim red light like a pool of fresh blood, was the platinum signet ring.
Nicholas Mercer was not dying.
There was no cancer in his stride; there was no weakness in his frame. His cold, pale blue eyes locked onto Ava with the chilling affection of a master inspecting a prize thoroughbred that had successfully run the maze.
"You did exceptionally well, Ava," Nicholas said, his deep, resonant voice echoing above the distant sirens wailing on the streets below. "You preserved the asset. You brought Oliver back to the center of the board, exactly as I calculated you would."
Ava felt the world slip away beneath her boots. The air turned thin, icy, impossible to breathe.
"You planned this," she whispered, her voice trembling with a horror far deeper than any fear of Julian. "From the beginning. The yacht sinking. The leak to Julian. The balcony... you knew Julian was going to blow that glass."
"I didn't just know, my dear," Nicholas said smoothly, stopping two feet from her, tapping his cane softly against the grating. "I provided Julian with the blueprints for the micro-explosives. I told him which day the terrace sensors would be deactivated."
"Why?" Ava choked out, tears of raw disgust burning in her eyes. "He’s a two-year-old child! He is your own flesh and blood!"
"He is not a child," Nicholas corrected, his eyes gleaming with unholy, fanatical light. "He is an empty vessel. And until a vessel is tested by fire, until it survives the shock of near-death, its neural pathways cannot accept the synthetic quantum imprint stored on that drive you so dutifully carried."
Nicholas gestured with his hand.
Vance stepped back into the service pantry and emerged a moment later, holding the terrified, weeping boy in his arms.
"Ava! Ava!" Oliver screamed, stretching his tiny arms toward her through the dark.
"Let him go!" Ava lunged, but Nicholas caught her by the throat with shocking, unnatural strength, pinning her against the high glass partition that looked out over the stormy Manhattan skyline.
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"He belongs to me, Ava," Nicholas whispered into her ear, his breath smelling of mint and ice. "He always did. And now, the empire has its immortal king."
***
