Chapter 5 - The Double
"You're very protective, Julian," the child whispered, her innocent six-year-old lisp vanishing, replaced by a calibrated, mocking cadence. "Just like your profile said."
Julian recoiled, his instincts firing on all cylinders as he kicked Ashford away and leveled his weapon at the child he had held against his chest for the last hour.
The girl’s hand dipped into the peach tulle dress. Instead of a flower girl's handkerchief, she whipped out a ceramic micro-blade, slashing upward toward Julian’s carotid artery. Julian threw his forearm back; the razor-sharp edge sliced cleanly through his tuxedo sleeve and deep into the flesh of his left forearm.
He shoved her back with a sweep of his leg. The child flipped backward with uncanny acrobatics, landing on her feet with the poise of an adult gymnast. She reached behind her ears, peeling off an ultra-thin silicone mask that had altered her cheekbones and jawline to resemble Lily Vance. Beneath it was a young dwarf operative, infamous in the Eurasian syndicates under the moniker The Doll.
"Where is my daughter?" Julian growled, blood dripping from his sleeve, spattering the white linoleum floor.
"Safe in an armored transport heading south to the harbor," Ashford wheezed from the floor, clutching his bleeding knee, laughing through his agony. "Eleanor’s tantrum was just theater to confirm which child you were guarding. We swapped the real Lily while you were preoccupied playing hero on the gala stage!"
Julian’s mind flashed back to the moment Eleanor had made the scene. He had left Lily with her governess in the private study for just three minutes before Eleanor's scream drew him back to the grand staircase. That was the window. They had drugged Lily, smuggled her out through the wine cellars, and substituted this assassin to hold the brooch.
The Doll lunged again, blades flashing in both hands.
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Julian didn't blink. He fired two rounds into her center mass. The operative collapsed instantly into a lifeless heap on the kitchen tiles.
Julian stepped over her body, grabbed Ashford by his satin lapels, and dragged him toward the loading bay doors. "You have thirty seconds to give me the transport coordinates," Julian snarled, pressing his thumb into Ashford's shattered knee, "or I peel the skin from your face."
