Chapter 13 - The Decoy
Arthur took a deep, ragged breath, his mind stripping away every emotion except tactical necessity. He grabbed Julian’s waterlogged trench coat, which had been abandoned on a wrought-iron bench near the conservatory entrance, slipping his arms through the sodden sleeves. He pulled the wide-brimmed hat low over his brow, concealing his sharp features and the bloody scratches on his cheek. In the torrential downpour and flickering lightning, his silhouette was nearly indistinguishable from his dead brother’s.
"Hannah," Arthur whispered, turning to the terrified maid. "The drainage tunnel behind the azaleas is narrow, but it empties into the creek outside the security cameras. You don't stop running until you hit the main highway. Take my car keys from my pocket." He pressed the brass ring into her trembling hand. "Keep Lily quiet. Don't look back."
"I promise, Mr. Sterling," Hannah whispered, pulling Lily close. The little girl reached out, her small fingers brushing against Arthur’s soaked cuff, but she didn't cry out. She had seen the look in her father’s eyes—the look of a man who had made his peace with whatever came next.
"Go," Arthur commanded.
He didn't wait to see them move. Arthur grabbed a heavy brass sprinkler head from the garden bed, rose to his full height, and sprinted away from the azalea bushes, heading straight toward the open expanse of the marble terrace.
CRACK.
A rifle shot tore through the air, the bullet sparking violently against the marble balustrade three inches from his hip. Arthur threw himself behind a life-sized bronze statue of a stag, panting heavily. The red laser sight found the statue's flank, hovering steadily.
"Sterling!" a voice shouted from the tree line, amplified by the natural bowl of the valley. It was a rough, professional voice, devoid of panic. "Drop the ledger! Mrs. Vance promised a bonus for the documents, but she didn't say we had to bring you back breathing!"
They didn't know Claire was dead. They didn't know the vault had already incinerated the very papers they had been hired to retrieve.
"You're too late!" Arthur bellowed through the driving rain, pitching his voice lower, mimicking Julian’s raspy cadence. "The ledger is ashes! Claire is dead in the vault! Your money burned with her!"
A beat of hesitation rippled through the darkness. The laser dot flickered.
Arthur capitalized on the doubt. He hurled the heavy brass sprinkler head toward the glass panes of the nearby greenhouse annex. The crash of breaking glass drew the sniper's immediate reflex—CRACK-CRACK—two rounds tore through the greenhouse empty space.
In that two-second window of muzzle flash, Arthur pinpointed the shooter’s position: fifty yards out, perched on the low stone wall overlooking the rose pavilion.
Arthur didn't run away. He closed the distance. Moving low through the rose bushes, thorny brambles tearing at his trousers and hands, he moved with the deadly silence he had learned during his years of military service before inheriting the Sterling corporate machine.
As he circled behind the stone wall, lightning ripped across the sky, illuminating the second mercenary standing near an unmarked black SUV parked on the gravel service road. The man was holding a radio to his ear, his face twisted in frustration.
"Base, we got a problem," the mercenary was saying into the mic. "The estate is on fire, but we got no confirmation from Vance. The brother is on the terrace, and he says—"
Arthur struck from the darkness like a phantom. He slammed the heavy iron crowbar across the mercenary's shoulder, sweeping the man’s legs out from under him in a single, brutal motion. The radio flew into the mud.
Before the man could recover his weapon, Arthur had his knee pinned against the man’s throat. "Where is the remote detonator for the front gates?" Arthur demanded in a voice that promised death.
The man gasped for air, his eyes wide with shock as he looked up into the face of the supposedly soft corporate billionaire. "In... in the truck console! Don't shoot!"
May you like
Arthur struck him precisely behind the ear, rendering him unconscious, and lunged into the open cab of the SUV. He found the gate remote and the mercenary's tactical shotgun resting against the passenger seat.
Just as Arthur’s hand closed around the shotgun’s grip, the side mirror of the truck shattered. The sniper on the ridge had re-acquired his target.
