Chapter 19 - The Hunt in the Fog
Elena didn't scream. She didn't beg.
When a person has already plunged into the pitch-black waters of the Atlantic, felt the paralyzing cold of the deep sea creeping into their lungs, and looked into the eyes of a monster holding a gaff hook, fear stops being a paralyzing weight. It becomes an accelerant.
As Julian’s finger began to squeeze the trigger, Elena grabbed the heavy brass banker’s lamp from the desk and hurled it with all her strength directly at his face.
*BANG.*
The gunshot deafened the confined space of the vault. The 9mm round tore through the shoulder of Elena’s jacket, grazing the skin beneath with the white-hot kiss of burning lead. But the heavy lamp struck Julian square in the mouth, shattering his teeth and sending him staggering backward into the steel doorframe.
Elena didn't hesitate. She threw her entire body weight against Julian, tackling him through the vault doorway and out onto the marble floor of the penthouse salon.
They crashed to the ground beside Christian’s cooling corpse. The Glock slipped from Julian’s bloody fingers, skittering across the polished floor toward the edge of the glass terrace doors.
Julian roared in fury—a primal, aristocratic beast stripped of his velvet facade. He scrambled atop her, his bloodied mouth snarling, his fingers locking around Elena’s throat with suffocating, bone-crushing force.
“You ungrateful little bitch!” Julian hissed, spit and blood spraying across her face. “You were nothing before I found you! You were grading papers in a drafty classroom! I gave you diamonds! I gave you the world!”
Elena clawed at his eyes, her thumbs digging into his sockets. The room was turning black at the edges, her lungs screaming for oxygen as Julian’s thumbs bore deep into her windpipe.
*“And you gave me thirty feet of saltwater!”* Elena choked out.
With the last ounce of strength in her fading body, Elena reached blindly to her right. Her fingers closed around the heavy, cut-crystal base of the Dom Pérignon champagne bottle on the coffee table.
She swung it in a violent, upward arc.
The heavy glass slammed into the side of Julian’s temple with a sickening, hollow *CRACK*.
Julian’s eyes rolled back. His grip on her throat slackened instantly. He slumped sideways off her body, collapsing onto the marble floor, unconscious, a dark ribbon of blood pooling beneath his golden hair.
Elena rolled onto her hands and knees, coughing violently, gasping for air that felt like razor blades in her bruised throat. She dragged herself across the floor toward the terrace doors, her hand trembling as she retrieved the fallen Glock.
Behind her, the private elevator doors chimed.
Elena spun around on her knees, raising the weapon with both shaking hands.
The elevator doors slid open.
Standing inside was Agent Miller, flanked by four heavily armed tactical officers from the FBI’s New York Field Office, their carbines raised, tactical lights blinding.
“Drop the weapon! Drop it now!” Miller roared.
Elena let the gun slip from her numb fingers. It clattered against the marble. She fell back against the glass terrace wall, her chest heaving, tears finally breaking through her shock as the federal agents flooded the room.
Miller ran forward, checking Christian’s pulse, then Julian’s, before kneeling beside Elena, throwing a warm tactical jacket over her shaking shoulders.
“It’s over, Elena,” Miller breathed, his voice tight with adrenaline. “We’ve got Julian. We’ve got the building secure. The paramedics are on their way up.”
Elena shook her head slowly, her eyes wide, staring past Miller at the open elevator doors.
“It’s not over, Miller,” Elena whispered, her voice a hollow, terrifying croak. “Where is Victoria?”
Miller frowned, looking around the opulent, blood-soaked penthouse. “She was never here, Elena. The transmission to the safehouse… the Rolls-Royce… it was all Julian and Christian. Victoria Montgomery died on that yacht.”
Elena pointed a trembling, bloodstained finger toward the corner of the penthouse entry hall.
Sitting on an antique mahogany side table, beside an untouched vase of fresh white lilies, was a single, vintage silver hand mirror.
Written across the glass in bright red lipstick was a message left less than five minutes ago:
May you like
*‘Julian was always the weakest of my children. Thank you for weeding the garden, my dear. See you at the lighthouse.’*
***
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