Chapter 14 - The Lion's Roar
""Leo! No!"" Vincent roared through the agonizing pain in his shoulder, struggling to push himself up from the blood-slicked metal deck.
Julian spun around, startled by the charging child. ""The boy?"" Julian's eyes widened in greedy astonishment. ""You brought the biometric key straight to my feet!""
Julian reached out with his heavy leather gloves to snatch the boy by his collar. But Leo did not hesitate. Moving with the agile savagery of a child who had spent his life surviving in the streets, Leo slid beneath Julian’s outstretched arms on the wet deck, swinging the heavy steel spanner directly into Julian’s kneecap with a sickening crunch.
Julian screamed in agony, collapsing onto his injured leg, clutching his shattered joint.
""Run, Leo! Inside!"" Vincent bellowed.
Vincent surged forward despite the burning agony in his shoulder. He threw his entire body weight into Julian, driving the younger man violently against the rusted safety railing of the catwalk. The weathered iron groaned and buckled beneath their combined impact.
Up on the gantry, the sniper tried to reacquire a clean shot, but the driving rain and the tumbling bodies made a precise target impossible.
Leo reached the reinforced door of the observation room. He slammed the silver medallion into the external sensor pad and pressed his bleeding thumb against the glass screen.
The heavy pneumatic door hissed open with a rush of pressurized air.
""Mom!"" Leo screamed, hurling himself into the room.
Clara, her eyes streaming with tears of sheer disbelief and relief, kicked her chair over, using the sharp edge of the overturned metal frame to saw frantically through the zip-ties binding her wrists. The medical technician tried to grab the boy, but Clara drove her booted heel into the technician's groin, knocking him sprawling across the tile floor.
Outside, the struggle between Vincent and Julian reached a lethal conclusion.
Julian pulled a concealed ceramic blade from his boot, slashing wildly at Vincent's face. The blade cut a deep line across Vincent’s cheek, but the patriarch did not flinch. Vincent caught Julian's wrist in an iron grip, twisting the joint violently until the knife slipped from his nerveless fingers.
""This is for Clara,"" Vincent snarled, driving a brutal right cross into Julian's jaw.
Julian fell against the damaged railing, which finally gave way with a violent snap. Julian swung outward over the sheer two-hundred-foot drop into the empty concrete dry dock below, clinging desperately to Vincent's coat lapels with one hand.
""Uncle! Please!"" Julian shrieked, the arrogant smirk vanishing into pure, unadulterated terror. ""We're the same blood! Don't let me fall!""
Vincent looked down into the eyes of the man who had ordered his execution, hunted his daughter, and terrorized his grandson.
Vincent reached down, his fingers slowly, deliberately peeling Julian's hands away from his coat.
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""Blood means loyalty, Julian,"" Vincent said with chilling finality. ""You are no de La Tour.""
Julian’s fingers slipped. He plummeted into the darkness, his screams swallowed by the roaring Atlantic gale.
