BLOODLINES OF ASH AND AMBER

The cold steel of Julian’s revolver bit into Clara’s side, but the frantic panic that had gripped her all morning vanished, replaced by an icy, blinding hatred. She looked up at him. Julian’s hair was disheveled, his expensive gray shirt torn and stained with his mother’s blood, his eyes wide and bloodshot with mania.

“Give me the drives,” Julian snarled, his finger whitening on the trigger as the ferry groaned beneath them, listing further into the murky water. “Give them to me, and I’ll tell the judge you drowned in the river. You can disappear. I won't care.”

“You’re a terrible liar, Julian,” Clara said, her voice steady and venomous. “You killed your mother because she was going to write you out of the will. You killed Mark because he wouldn't let you sell the family’s assets to Sterling.”

“Mark was a weakling!” Julian screamed over the shrieking sirens, drawing the horrified stares of several fleeing passengers. “He had all that power and wanted to give it to you! You were nothing! A charity case your father begged us to marry off!”

“My father owned the ground you built your empire on,” Clara hissed.

With a sudden, violent twist of her torso, Clara slammed her elbow upward into Julian’s throat. Julian gagged, his shot discharging harmlessly into the wooden deck planking. Clara grabbed his wrist with both hands, driving it down against the ship’s heavy iron railing.

The gun clattered over the side, splashing into the river.

Julian lunged forward, throwing his entire weight onto her, wrapping his hands around her neck just as he had done to his mother hours earlier. They crashed against the railing, the icy wind howling around them. Clara choked, black spots dancing across her vision as his thumbs dug into her windpipe.

“You die here, Clara!” he spit, flecks of saliva hitting her face.

Clara reached blindly into her pocket, her fingers finding Gabriel Cross’s silver lighter. She flicked the wheel, igniting the flame, and shoved the burning tip directly into Julian’s open eye.

Julian shrieked in agony, releasing his grip and stumbling backward, clutching his burned face.

Before he could recover, Clara planted her boot firmly against his chest and pushed.

Julian’s center of gravity shifted over the low railing. With a frantic flailing of arms, he tumbled over the edge, plunging fifty feet down into the churning white wake of the ferry's propellers.

Clara leaned over the rail, coughing violently as air returned to her lungs. Julian surfaced thirty yards behind the ship, screaming for help as the dark currents pulled him toward the harbor locks.