Chapter 14 - Blood on the Water
The warehouse transformed into a blazing inferno of gunfire, falling concrete, and screaming men. The collapse of the sea pylons had torn open the center of the structure, exposing the dark, churning harbor water fifteen feet below. Mercenaries scrambled over twisted rebar and fractured concrete, firing wildly into the gloom of the upper catwalks.
Dwight descended through the smoke and debris like a vengeful god of war. His carbine spat controlled, devastating fire, dropping three armed contractors before they could shoulder their rifles. When his rifle clicked empty, he discarded it without breaking stride, drawing his dual .45 automatics and advancing through the wreckage.
Every shot he fired found flesh and bone. He moved with an astonishing fluidity that defied his years, driven by a primal need to eliminate every threat that dared to look upon Julian’s life. His operators followed close behind, systematically wiping out the perimeter security and securing the warehouse exits.
Across the ruined floor, Eleanor Vance was being dragged toward a private speedboat moored at the edge of the pier by her surviving commander. She saw Dwight emerging from the blazing smoke, his coat billowing, his face illuminated by the dancing firelight.
"Kill him!" Eleanor screamed, her voice shrill with desperation. "Shoot him!"
The mercenary commander shoved Eleanor toward the boat, spinning around with a heavy automatic shotgun. But before he could rack the slide, Dwight closed the distance with terrifying speed.
Dwight dodged inside the weapon's barrel, his left hand deflecting the shotgun upward as a deafening blast shattered the corrugated roof overhead. In the same motion, Dwight drove the butt of his heavy steel pistol violently into the commander’s throat, crushing his windpipe. As the man fell choking to his knees, Dwight fired a single point-blank round through his chest plate, dropping him lifeless into the dark harbor water.
Eleanor fell back against the wooden pier, scrambling desperately away on her hands and knees. Her immaculate coat was torn, her hands scraped and bloody, her face pale with unadulterated terror as the massive shadow of Dwight fell over her.
Dwight stepped forward, the twin barrels of his pistols trailing wisps of grey smoke. He stood over her, breathing slowly, his eyes colder than the ocean wind whipping off the bay.
"Dwight... please," Eleanor gasped, her arrogance completely evaporating into pathetic trembling. "I have millions in Swiss accounts. I will give you the consortium. I will leave this country and never return! Just let me live!"
Dwight looked down at the last living daughter of the Van Der Bilt dynasty. He saw no formidable mastermind; he saw only the same pathetic cowardice that had consumed Malcolm in his final moments.
"Thirty years ago," Dwight spoke, his gravelly voice carrying over the crackling fires behind him, "I spared a six-month-old girl because I believed innocent children should not pay for the sins of their fathers. I let you live, Eleanor. I gave you wealth, an education, and a chance at peace."
Eleanor glared up through her tears, a flicker of ancestral hatred returning to her eyes. "You murdered my father! You took everything that was ours!"
"Your father was a butcher who fed his own men to the sharks when they failed him," Dwight answered coldly. "And you... you sought to take a six-year-old child and turn him into a weapon. You proved that bad blood cannot be cured by mercy."
Eleanor reached frantically into her boot, pulling out a concealed ceramic dagger, lunging forward with a desperate, wild shriek.
Dwight didn't even flinch. He sidestepped the blade with effortless grace, his massive hand closing around her wrist and twisting it with a sickening snap. The dagger clattered harmlessly into the water. Dwight leaned down, grabbing her by the collar of her ruined trench coat, hauling her to her feet and holding her over the churning black abyss below the pier.
"Your family ends tonight, Eleanor," Dwight whispered directly into her ear. "Tell your father I sent you."
Dwight opened his hand.
Eleanor screamed as she fell backward into the dark, churning water, disappearing beneath the foam where the heavy industrial undertow dragged her into the depths of the harbor. She did not surface.
Dwight stood at the edge of the pier for a long moment, watching the dark water settle back into a calm, oily stillness. The last remnant of the Van Der Bilt dynasty had been wiped from the face of the earth. The city was finally, irrevocably his.
Dwight turned back toward his men, holstering his weapons. "Search the freighter. Seize the shipping manifests and burn the ship to the waterline. We are going home."
Just then, Dwight’s satellite phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out, expecting Victor’s routine check-in. But when he answered, it was not Victor's voice that met his ear.
May you like
It was Julian.
The boy was whispering into the phone, his small voice trembling with sheer, suffocating terror: "Daddy... there are men inside the house. Victor is down. I'm hiding in the pantry... please help me."
