Chapter 11 - The Matriarch's End
Victoria’s eyes were completely devoid of sanity. Her high society façade had burned away, leaving behind the primal monster that had fed on suffering for a decade. Her pearl necklace was broken, the white beads scattering across the blistered floor like hail.
""You took everything,"" Victoria rasped, raising the revolver toward Mara’s chest. ""My home. My son. My enterprise.""
Mara stood completely still on the window ledge, balanced between the three-story drop into the night and the barrel of the gun. The flames were licking at Victoria’s back, catching the trim of her charred designer coat, but the woman seemed entirely numb to the agony.
""Your enterprise is already scattered across three federal field offices, Victoria,"" Mara said, her voice cold, steady, and devoid of fear. ""Your servers are mirrored. Every buyer on your ledger has an arrest team on their lawn right now.""
Victoria’s hand trembled, the cylinder of the gun aligning with Mara’s forehead. ""Then we burn together.""
""Not tonight,"" Mara replied.
Mara did not draw a weapon. She dropped her weight backward out the window, falling cleanly into the open air.
Victoria shrieked, lunging toward the window to fire into the darkness.
She never pulled the trigger.
The sudden redistribution of weight and the structural failure of the floorboards culminated in an instant. The central attic chimney, weakened by decades of moisture and now cracked by the extreme heat, collapsed inward. Tons of century-old masonry and mortar sheared through the roofline, dropping like an avalanche directly onto the attic center.
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The entire floor pancaked. Victoria was swallowed instantly under a deluge of crushing brick and falling timbers, her final scream lost in the deafening thunder of the house imploding upon itself.
Outside, ten feet below the sill, Mara hit the heavy canvas rescue net held by the tactical team, bouncing once before rolling onto the safety of the damp, emerald grass.
