Chapter 5 - Ashes of the Dynasty
The vintage elevator groaned as it carried Julian and Clara beneath the foundations of the Vance estate, arriving at a forgotten auxiliary depot connected to the city's abandoned freight rail. Julian placed Clara onto a canvas cot inside the emergency shelter, throwing a heavy wool military blanket over her trembling shoulders.
""Drink this,"" he commanded gently, pressing a thermos of warm water into her hands.
""Where are we going?"" Clara asked, her eyes wild with terror. ""Mr. Vance, she said your father's house...""
Julian didn't answer immediately. He retrieved an encrypted satellite phone from a rusted locker and dialed his father's private residence in the hills. The line rang once, twice, three times, before cutting to harsh, static-filled dead air. His gut plummeted. Eleanor wasn't bluffing; she never bluffed when money was at stake.
He tapped into the estate’s closed-circuit security grid via the phone’s handheld monitor. The screen flickered to life, showing live satellite thermal imaging of the Vance Manor. What should have been an imposing limestone monument to five generations of wealth was a glowing red inferno on the screen. The entire west wing had collapsed.
""My God..."" Julian muttered under his breath.
""Mr. Julian?"" Clara’s voice shook. ""Before they tied me up... Eleanor was talking on a satellite phone. She wasn't just talking to the Board. She called someone 'Uncle Henry.'""
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Julian froze, the blood draining from his face. Uncle Henry was Henry Sterling—his father’s supposedly deceased business partner who had disappeared at sea twelve years ago. If Henry was alive, then Eleanor was not an opportunist who wormed her way into high society. She was an assassin sent to eradicate the Vance bloodline from within.
Just then, the iron door of the shelter creaked open from the darkened railway tunnel. A shadowy figure stepped through the threshold, racking the slide of a shotgun.
