Chapter 28 - The Bullet That Chose the Husband
The subterranean corridors of the wine cellar became a slaughterhouse in the dark.
Elena moved barefoot through the cold, damp stone channels, her silk gown torn at the knees to allow freedom of movement. She could hear Charlotte’s measured, tactical footsteps behind her—slow, confident, the rubber soles of her combat boots gripping the flagstones without a sound.
*Charlotte has night vision,* Elena realized, spotting the faint green infrared halo sweeping around the corner forty feet behind her.
Elena reached into the shadows of an ancient brick archway. She found what she was looking for: the heavy iron release valve for the estate’s ammonia-based cooling system, which chilled the cellar to forty-five degrees.
She gripped the rusted wheel with both hands, set her feet, and hauled with all her strength.
The iron screamed, then gave way with a deafening hiss of escaping gas. A thick, blinding cloud of vaporized pressurized ammonia burst into the hallway, filling the narrow corridor with a choking, corrosive fog that instantly rendered Charlotte’s infrared optics useless and burned the membranes of the eyes and throat.
Charlotte coughed—a ragged, violent gasp of agony—and fired wildly into the white fog.
Elena slipped beneath the cloud, staying low to the floor where the oxygen pooled. She moved like a ghost, guided by the sound of Charlotte’s coughing. When she was three feet away, Elena sprang from the mist, driving the jagged neck of the broken crystal decanter straight into Charlotte’s firing arm.
Charlotte screamed, dropping the Beretta.
The two women collided in the dark, tumbling across the stone floor in a tangle of silk, blood, and tearing muscle. Charlotte was heavier, trained in military hand-to-hand combat; she threw a vicious elbow that caught Elena across the jaw, snapping her head back and sending stars dancing across her vision.
Charlotte pinned Elena against the cold flagstones, her fingers locking around Elena’s throat, squeezing with crushing force.
"You’re... just... a street... rat!" Charlotte hissed, her eyes streaming with tears from the ammonia, her teeth bared like a rabid animal’s.
Elena couldn't breathe. Her vision began to vignette into blackness. Her lungs burned for air that wasn't poisoned with ammonia.
Her hand scrambled across the stone floor, searching for the weapon Charlotte had dropped.
Her fingers brushed cold steel.
The Beretta.
Elena didn't try to aim for Charlotte’s head. She brought the gun up against Charlotte’s ribs, jammed the muzzle into the soft tissue beneath the armpit, and pulled the trigger until the slide locked back empty.
*BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.*
Charlotte’s body jerked with each impact. Her grip on Elena’s throat loosened, her eyes widening in profound shock as the life emptied out of her in four ragged gasps.
Charlotte collapsed sideways onto the stone floor, her blood pooling into the cracks between the centuries-old mortar.
Elena lay on the floor, gasping for breath, coughing up the burning ammonia fumes, her heart hammering like a dying engine.
Above her, the emergency alarm began to wail—a shrill, rhythmic klaxon signaling that the halon gas had begun pumping into the upper levels of the house.
Elena pulled herself up by the edge of an oak wine cask. She picked up Charlotte’s biometric keycard, wiped the blood from her face, and staggered toward the private elevator that led directly to the master stateroom on the third floor.
She had to reach Julian before the gas finished him. Not to save him.
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To make sure he died looking her in the eye.
***
