Chapter 13 - The Fire in the Sky
The hydraulic shutters sealed the seventy-second floor into a soundproof steel vault. The panoramic windows overlooking Seattle suddenly felt like the walls of a transparent execution chamber.
"What did you do?" Sterling’s voice lost its aristocratic veneer, cracking into a harsh, furious bark. He lunged across the desk, his hands reaching for Clara’s throat.
Clara didn't flinch. She grabbed Eleanor’s heavy bronze paperweight from the desk and struck Sterling across the wrist with all the force in her body. The bone snapped with a sickening crack. Sterling roared in agony, staggering back against the glass window, clutching his broken arm.
"The drive was never the administrative transfer, Sterling!" Clara shouted, backing toward the center of the room. "It was a forensic data payload! Every bribe, every forged shipping manifest, every offshore bank account Eleanor Vance kept for twenty years—it's being uploaded to federal servers right now!"
The terminal’s automated countdown chimed rhythmically through the room:
Fifty seconds to public dissemination.
Victoria was hyperventilating, backing away toward the emergency fire door, clawing frantically at the reinforced steel plate. "Let me out! Victor, open the door! The feds will trace the accounts to me! I'll spend the rest of my life in a federal penitentiary!"
"Shut up, you fool!" Sterling hissed through gritted teeth, his face contorted in pain as he cradled his shattered wrist. He reached into his tailored jacket with his left hand, pulling out a sleek black semiautomatic pistol. His eyes locked onto Clara with murderous hatred. "You think you've won, little girl? If this data goes public, Vance Holdings dies with me. Your mother's name will be dragged through the mud for a century. You'll inherit nothing but shame."
"My mother is already dead, Sterling," Clara said, her voice steady, icy, stripped of all fear. "And I would rather be the daughter of an exposed criminal than the puppet of an untouchable monster."
Thirty seconds.
Sterling leveled the pistol directly at Clara’s forehead. His finger tightened on the trigger. "Then go join her."
BANG.
The gunshot exploded within the enclosed room, deafening and violent.
Clara braced for the impact, but no bullet tore through her flesh.
Sterling gasped, his body jerking violently. A dark, ragged hole blossomed through the center of his chest. He looked down in sheer disbelief, his weapon slipping from his numb fingers and clattering to the floor. Behind him, standing by the tipped-over chair, was Victoria.
In Victoria's trembling hands was Thomas’s snub-nosed revolver—dropped during the struggle or smuggled in from the lower floor. Smoke curled lazily from the barrel. Her eyes were wild, unhinged, dilated with absolute madness.
"He was going to leave me," Victoria whispered, her teeth chattering uncontrollably as Sterling collapsed to the floorboards, his blood pooling against the panoramic glass. "He was going to let me take the fall alone."
Ten seconds.
Victoria turned the smoking gun toward Clara.
"You ruined everything, Clara," Victoria sobbed, tears cutting tracks through her makeup. "I could have had it all. The house, the money, the status. Eleanor stole my youth, and now you stole my fortune."
"You killed my mother for money that was never yours," Clara said, stepping toward her without backing down. "Pull the trigger, Victoria. Show the world who you really are."
ZERO.
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Outside the panoramic windows, the morning mist was suddenly shattered by the blinding glare of three police helicopters rising above the bay, their searchlights illuminating the seventy-second floor in brilliant, unforgiving white light.
