Chapter 5 - The Glass Tempest
Marcus reacted on pure instinct, throwing his body over Victoria and dragging her behind the reinforced oak pillar supporting the mezzanine. Shards of crystal and tempered glass rained down across the foyer like frozen hail, slicing into the mahogany floorboards and sending deafening cracks echoing through the manor.
Above them, on the vaulted roof perimeter, another shot cracked through the autumn air.
""Get down!"" Marcus ordered through gritted teeth. His hand came away from his forearm sticky with blood where a stray shard of glass had slashed through his suit sleeve.
Victoria was hyperventilating, pressed flat against the floorboards, her glittering gown covered in pulverized crystal dust. ""Who is that?! Marcus, who is shooting at us?!""
""The people you made a deal with,"" Marcus hissed, pulling a concealed Glock 19 from his ankle holster. He checked the chamber with a smooth, practiced slide. ""Julian didn't flee the estate. He went up to the terrace.""
Suddenly, Marcus’s phone vibrated in his chest pocket. He keyed the speaker with his thumb without breaking his line of sight toward the mezzanine stairs.
""Mr. Vance,"" a synthesized voice spoke through the receiver, calm and distorted. ""Julian has fulfilled his preliminary contractual duties. You have five minutes to bring your late wife’s private ledger to the front lawn. If you fail, the master suite will be breached.""
The line went dead.
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Marcus's heart hammered against his ribs. Clarissa’s ledger—the personal financial journal containing offshore account coordinates that Marcus had spent two agonizing years searching for. He had believed it was lost forever when her car was found submerged weeks after her fall.
Then, from the top floor where Leo and Elena were hiding, the muffled thump of a breaching charge rattled the ceiling beams.
