Chapter 13 - Blood and Salt
Julianna’s shriek echoed through the intercom system. She fell to one knee, clawing desperately at the knife embedded in her foot. Briggs, bleeding heavily, hauled himself upward with his uninjured arm, wrapping his forearm around her neck in a desperate chokehold.
“Override the door, Mr. Vance!” Briggs yelled, his voice strained as Julianna thrashed wildly, gouging her nails into his eyes and neck.
Inside the vault, Alexander didn't hesitate. He took two steps back, aimed his Kimber .45 at the electronic lock mechanism on his side of the reinforced glass, and fired three hollow-point rounds into the primary magnetic solenoid. The high-caliber slugs blew the internal servos apart. With a heave of raw muscular power, Alexander grabbed the vault door’s emergency manual lever and wrenched it downward.
The heavy steel door swung outward with a grinding metallic screech.
Alexander stepped through into the control room just as Julianna managed to draw a hidden ceramic dagger from her boot, driving it into Briggs’s ribs. Briggs collapsed with a gasp, losing his grip. Julianna scrambled across the floor on hands and knees, reaching for the dropped detonator.
Alexander’s polished dress shoe came down like a hydraulic press on her outstretched wrist. Bones shattered beneath his heel. Julianna shrieked, collapsing flat onto the concrete as Alexander kicked the detonator across the room, out of reach.
He looked down at her with eyes colder than the ocean depths outside. “You spoke of heritage, Julianna. You spoke of earning an empire.”
“Alexander... please!” she begged, weeping through the unbearable pain of two shattered limbs. “I was manipulated! It was Victor! Victor forced me to do it!”
Victor, still curled against the wall, let out a hollow, bloody laugh. “Don't listen to her, Alexander... she planned it from the day Marcus proposed... she planned it all...”
Alexander didn't look at Victor. He bent down, picked up the detonator, and inspected the digital display. The timer was counting down: 01:45... 01:44...
“Can you defuse it?” Marcus wheezed from the vault entrance, leaning heavily against the doorway for support.
Alexander examined the military-grade casing. The wire terminals were sealed inside hardened epoxy resin. “No. It’s a dead-man circuit. Once initiated, cutting any wire accelerates the detonation.”
He looked at Briggs, who was pressing a hand to his bleeding chest, breathing heavily but alive. “Can you walk?”
“With help, sir,” Briggs grunted, clenching his teeth as he pulled himself up using the control console.
Alexander slung Briggs’s arm over his broad shoulder, while Marcus leaned on his other side. “We have ninety seconds to reach the upper helipad. Move.”
“Wait!” Julianna screamed, crawling on her stomach across the wet grating, dragging her bleeding foot. “Alexander! Don’t leave me here! Open the cages! You can’t leave me to die!”
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Alexander paused at the elevator door, looking back at the woman who had terrorized his four-year-old granddaughter and tried to murder his son.
“You wanted to feed my family scraps from a pet bowl,” Alexander said, his voice flat and merciless. “Now feast on what you built.”
