Chapter 13 - The Cold Bay
The rain beat down with relentless fury, turning the pier into a slick, treacherous trap. Clara stood behind Victoria, her small fingers clutching the back of the wet trench coat. Richard lay motionless on the asphalt, his blood washing into the bay in thin, pink ribbons.
"You don't care about her," Victoria said, her voice dropping into a lethal, steady cadence. She held the oilcloth-wrapped ledger in her left hand, hovering it directly over the dark, churning water below the pier railing. "You don't care about Helena. You don't even care about the Vance name. You only want the voting shares locked in this ledger."
Julian’s eyes narrowed, tracking the ledger with obsessive hunger. "Drop that, and I order my men to shoot you both where you stand. You have nowhere to run, Victoria. It's forty feet down into freezing currents. You wouldn't survive three minutes."
"Maybe not," Victoria said.
She looked back at Clara. The young girl was looking up at her, not with fear, but with an unspoken understanding that transcended words. In that silent exchange, Victoria saw the choice she should have made twelve years ago in that clinic in Zurich. She should have burned the Vance fortune to the ground and walked out into the cold with her baby.
"Clara," Victoria whispered softly, so only the girl could hear. "Take a deep breath and hold it."
"Victoria, don't!" Julian shouted, taking a frantic step forward.
Victoria threw the oilcloth package with all her might—not into the water, but directly into Julian’s face.
As Julian instinctively raised his arms to catch the documents, Victoria scooped Clara into her arms, vaulted the rusted iron railing, and plunged into the abyss.
May you like
The fall was an eternity of rushing wind and blackness.
Then came the impact. The freezing Atlantic hit them like a wall of solid concrete, knocking the air from Victoria’s lungs and dragging them down into the suffocating, sunless deep.
