Chapter 12 - A Mother's Vengeance
""Did you really think my father would leave me with nothing, Clara?"" Elena hissed, her finger resting lightly on the red rocker switch of the detonator. Her eyes were sunken, dark with madness and chemical desperation. ""Julian died because he was a coward. But I am a Morretti. You stole my life, you stole my future, and you destroyed my family's name!""
""You destroyed yourself, Elena,"" Clara responded, stepping forward despite Liam trying to push her back. Clara looked at the detonator with total disregard for her own safety, her protective instincts over Alexander burning like a furnace inside her chest. ""You clung to my pathetic ex-husband because you thought he had money. When that failed, you became a common terrorist.""
""Shut up!"" Elena screamed, her hand shaking violently on the trigger. ""Give me the baby! Hand him over right now, or I detonate the charges and collapse this entire cliffside into the ocean! We will all drown together!""
Liam measured the distance—thirty feet. A shot would hit her, but her dying muscle reflex would likely depress the switch. ""Stand down, Miss Morretti,"" Liam said in a calm, flat baritone. ""Your father has already abandoned you. He wired his remaining capital to an anonymous account in Zurich and boarded a private cargo flight to South America an hour ago.""
Elena’s eyes widened in erratic terror. ""You're lying! He wouldn't leave me!""
""He left you as bait to distract the Vance security while he made his run,"" Clara said, her voice dropping into an icy, merciless register. ""You gave up everything for men who saw you as disposable. Look at you, Elena. You're holding a bomb in a basement, while your father is drinking champagne at thirty thousand feet.""
A brief flicker of devastating realization cracked Elena's face. Her thumb loosened on the detonator by a fraction of a millimeter.
In that split second of psychological collapse, Clara acted. She didn't wait for Liam. Shifting Alexander securely behind her shoulder, Clara fired her ceramic pistol directly through Elena’s right kneecap.
Elena shrieked in agony, dropping the detonator as she collapsed to the floor. Liam lunged forward, his combat boot sliding across the concrete to kick the device safely away down the hall, while his other hand pinned Elena firmly against the stone floor, disarming her hidden blade in one clean motion.
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Clara walked over, looking down at the writhing woman on the ground with absolute coldness. Elena wept in the dirt, clutching her bleeding leg, ruined and pathetic.
""Call the federal marshals,"" Clara commanded Liam, never breaking eye contact with her defeated rival. ""Lock her in the deepest federal asylum in this country. Let her spend the rest of her life contemplating how much Julian Sterling was truly worth.""
