Chapter 58 - The Brother with No Mercy
"Step away from the ledger, Elena," Thomas said, his voice echoing through the vaulted rafters of the cathedral.
The three surviving mercenaries formed a semi-circle twenty feet away, their automatic rifles leveled at her center mass. Elena was completely exposed in the center aisle, trapped between the pews with no cover within reach.
The baby on her chest stirred, letting out a faint, melodic coo that sounded horrifically loud in the silent church.
Thomas’s ice-blue eyes drifted to the child. A strange, twisted look of paternal pride flickered across his burned features. "Look at her. Not a single tear. Not a whimper. She was built for this. She doesn't have the weakness that destroyed Julian. She doesn't have the stupidity that got Christian butchered. She is Mother’s masterwork."
"She’s a child, Thomas," Elena spat, her finger hovering over the carbine’s trigger, though she knew firing first would mean instant death for both her and the baby. "And your mother will discard her the moment she turns eighteen and tries to think for herself."
"Mother will be dead long before then," Thomas replied, taking a step down the aisle. "And I will be the sole regent of the Montgomery Corporation. Do you know why I had Mother orchestrate your wedding to Julian, Elena?"
Elena’s eyes narrowed. "Julian said you wanted the matrilineal clause."
"Julian was an idiot who thought Mother cared about rules," Thomas laughed, a dry, rattling sound. "The trust doesn't require a *living* bride. It requires an uncontested death certificate issued under maritime jurisdiction. If you died on the yacht, Julian would have inherited, and I would have killed him twenty minutes later. But you survived. You climbed that ladder. You dragged us all into the mud."
Thomas raised the crossbow until the broadhead bolt was aligned with Elena’s throat.
"Now, the court is waiting in the harbor. Mother is on the command barge at the Navy Yard. We take you there, you sign the trust emancipation with your blood, and then we throw you back into the sea where you belong."
"You forgot one thing, Thomas," Elena said, her voice dropping to an eerie, calm whisper.
Thomas paused, his finger tightening on the crossbow trigger. "What's that, little bride?"
"Julian wasn't the only one who left a contingency in this church."
Elena’s left hand, concealed beneath the folds of her oversized canvas coat, clicked a small remote transmitter she had pulled from the safehouse bunker.
Directly beneath Thomas’s feet, the ancient marble floor erupted.
Julian had not merely hidden a ledger in the Cathedral of St. Jude. He had used the church’s subterranean heating tunnels as an arms cache during his final months of paranoia. Two pounds of military-grade C4, planted directly beneath the central aisle's heating vents, detonated with a deafening, concussive roar.
The marble floor shattered into jagged shrapnel. The shockwave threw Thomas violently backward into the carved oak communion rail, splintering the ancient wood into matchsticks. The two mercenaries on the left were swallowed instantly as the floor collapsed into the fiery cellar below.
Elena was knocked off her feet by the blast, her body rolling to protect the baby as chunks of stone and burning timber rained down from the vaulted ceiling.
Choking on pulverized mortar and smoke, Elena scrambled to her feet. She scooped up the brass-bound 1964 ledger with one hand, raised her carbine with the other, and fired a sustained burst into the dust cloud where the third mercenary was trying to clear his weapon.
The man collapsed backward into the burning crater.
Thomas was down, pinned beneath a fallen section of the choir loft railing, coughing blood, his crossbow crushed beneath a chunk of masonry. But his eyes—wild, feral, and full of hate—locked onto Elena as she approached.
Elena stood over him, the barrel of the carbine pressed directly between his eyes.
"Kill me," Thomas choked out, spitting crimson onto his tactical vest. "Mother... Mother is already at the Navy Yard. She has the federal judge on board. The deadline is midnight. You can't stop it."
Elena looked down at him, her face devoid of mercy.
"I'm not going to kill you, Thomas," Elena whispered.
She swung the butt of the heavy carbine down with all her might, smashing it into his temple, knocking him into black oblivion.
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***
