DEADLY DESCENT: My Mother Tried To Murder My Pregnant Wife Down An Icy Cliff—Until What Fell From Her Pocket Exposed An Unspeakable Betrayal!

The air between the two identical men was charged with thirty years of stolen destiny and toxic vengeance. Julian held a nickel-plated semi-automatic pistol leveled directly at Daniel’s chest, his fingers relaxed on the grip with the poise of an experienced executioner. Behind him, three heavily armed mercenaries filed into the ruined great hall, their weapon lights piercing the thick haze of plaster dust.

"You look well, Daniel," Julian said, stepping forward. His boots crunched over the shattered remnants of the chandelier. "A little worn around the eyes. Domestic life softens a man. Me? I spent my twentieth birthday eating rice from a plastic bowl in a private asylum while mother bought you a yacht for your graduation from Harvard."

"She was a monster to both of us, Julian!" Daniel barked, keeping his own weapon locked onto his twin’s forehead, refusing to yield an inch. Behind Daniel, Emily slowly reached down toward her waistband, where a concealed snub-nosed revolver was tucked. "Eleanor used you, she used me, and she murdered our father! You think you're getting justice? You’re just her final weapon from inside a cell!"

"Do not insult my intelligence by comparing our miseries!" Julian’s voice suddenly cracked, losing its aristocratic sheen, exposing a howling, feral pit of childhood rage. "You had a name! You had sunlight! You had the warmth of a mother’s touch, even if it was synthetic! I was an off-book asset! A kidney match! A spare-parts warehouse in case the precious heir contracted leukemia!"

Julian signaled with his left hand. The two mercenaries on his flank moved to encircle them.

"Hand the infant to me, Daniel," Julian ordered coldly. "Her retina is keyed to the Lin biometric depository in Bern. Sarah Lin left seventy percent of her private holdings to her first granddaughter. Not to you. Not to me. To her. Give her to me, and I will let Emily walk out of this mountain alive."

"Over my dead body," Daniel whispered.

"That was always the preferred option," Julian replied.

In that microsecond, Emily didn't scream or beg. She acted with the ferocious instinct of a mother whose child was threatened. She kicked the edge of a heavy cast-iron fireplace poker lying on the floor, sending it flying toward Julian’s knees.

Julian flinched, firing a shot that tore through the cedar paneling above Daniel’s head.

Daniel lunged forward, throwing all his body weight into a tackle that slammed Julian against the stone mantlepiece. The two brothers crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs, rage, and bone-shattering impacts. Daniel brought an elbow down against Julian’s jaw; Julian retaliated with a brutal thumb-gouge aimed directly at Daniel’s eye socket, snarling like a rabid animal.

"Emily! Run to the tunnel!" Daniel screamed through gritted teeth, catching Julian’s wrist just as the nickel-plated pistol was brought toward his temple.

One of the mercenaries raised his rifle toward Emily’s back as she scrambled down the basement stairs with the baby. But Emily turned on the top step, drew the snub-nosed revolver, and emptied three rounds at point-blank range into the mercenary’s exposed neck and chest. The man collapsed with a gurgling shriek.

Julian, realizing the momentum was shifting, bucked his hips and slammed Daniel’s head back against the stone hearth. Stars exploded across Daniel’s vision. For a terrifying second, his vision went black, his reconstructed spine screaming with white-hot agony.

Julian scrambled up, wiping blood from his split lip, and leveled his gun at Daniel’s chest. "Goodbye, brother."

Before Julian could pull the trigger, the sudden, deafening wail of a mountain storm horn echoed through the shattered roof. A massive tear-gas canister crashed through the front entrance, spewing thick, incapacitating gray smoke.