Chapter 9 - Rooftop Reckoning
The night air hit Alec like an open hand as he kicked open the steel fire door leading onto the penthouse helipad. Rain had begun to fall over the city skyline, a heavy, driving downpour that turned the wet concrete into a mirror reflecting the flashing red strobe lights of the landing pad.
A twin-engine Eurocopter sat idling in the center of the rooftop, its rotor blades whipping the rain into a violent mist.
Standing ten yards from the chopper, illuminated by the halogen floodlights, stood Clara.
She was no longer the broken, weeping bride. She had stripped off the voluminous white silk skirts, wearing only the fitted black tactical corset and dark combat trousers she had pulled from his safe. A heavy sniper rifle hung across her back, and her hands were steady, holding a silenced automatic pistol aimed directly at the access door where Alec stood.
Her dark hair was plastered to her face by the rain. The violet lash marks on her bare shoulders glistened, raw and cruel, proving Julian’s horrific words: she had endured torture simply to make the deception flawless.
""You took the lashes,"" Alec shouted above the deafening roar of the rotors, his rifle held low, ready to snap up in a heartbeat. ""You let them flay your flesh just to bait me?""
Clara smiled, a cold, dazzling expression that sent shivers through the rain. ""Pain is temporary, Alec. Power lasts forever. Donald promised me the entire Mediterranean fleet once you were buried.""
""Donald is locked in a basement vault,"" Alec said, advancing a slow, deliberate pace through the storm. ""He won't live to see sunrise. And neither will you.""
""You won't shoot me,"" she laughed, taking a slow step toward the helicopter’s open cabin. ""I saw your eyes when you knelt beside me on that floor. You looked at me like I was something precious. A wounded dove you could save. You're too noble, Alec. That's why your family was always doomed to lose to Donald.""
""I wasn't looking at a dove,"" Alec said softly, though his voice cut through the drone of the engines with terrifying clarity. ""I was looking at the target.""
Clara’s smirk faltered for a fraction of a second. ""What?""
Alec raised his left hand, revealing a small black detonation trigger he had taken from his armor vest.
""The tactical gear in my panic room isn't just protected by biometric locks,"" Alec said, his eyes locking onto hers with unwavering venom. ""Every vest and magazine inside that safe contains an RFID tracker linked to the compound's perimeter claymores. You put on my tactical trousers, Clara.""
Clara’s gaze dropped to the gear she wore.
""And the helicopter you're boarding?"" Alec continued. ""It doesn't belong to your extraction team. It belongs to me.""
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Inside the cockpit, the pilot turned his head. He wasn't wearing an Iron Ring uniform. He was Marcus—Alec’s head of security, grinning beneath his flight helmet.
Clara’s pistol snapped toward Alec’s head, her finger squeezing the trigger.
