Chapter 6 - The Fall
The grip was suffocating. Clara thrashed, driving her sharp heel backward into her attacker’s shin with all the force she could muster.
A sharp grunt sounded behind her, the grip loosening just enough for Clara to twist around. It was Marcus. He had driven straight here the moment she left the warehouse, taking the express elevator while she circled the block.
""You should have just scrubbed the floors, girl,"" Marcus growled, his face twisted in ruthless determination. ""Julian didn't want a messy divorce. A grieving widower looks much better to the board.""
He lunged forward, grabbing the lapels of her tweed dress, shoving her toward the low glass railing of the balcony. The city lights swam dizzyingly beneath her, tiny yellow cabs crawling through the canyon of concrete four hundred feet down. The wind tore at her hair, whipping strands across her vision.
Clara didn't scream. Screaming wasted oxygen.
Instead, she slipped her right hand into her coat pocket, gripping the heavy, sharp-edged cluster of industrial keys she had kept from the warehouse. As Marcus pressed her upper torso over the edge of the railing, his face inches from hers, she drove the jagged brass keys straight into the side of his neck.
Marcus roared in agony, his hands reflexively releasing her to clutch his bleeding throat. Clara dropped to the floor, rolling away from the sheer drop, her back slamming hard against the balcony glass partition.
""Bitch!"" he wheezed, staggering forward, blood spilling through his leather-gloved fingers.
Clara scrambled to her feet, her hand reaching down to the heavy marble sculpture sitting on the outdoor dining table. As Marcus lunged blindly, blinded by his own blood, she brought the solid stone pedestal down directly against his temple.
The heavy thud echoed above the rushing wind. Marcus crumpled to the tiled balcony floor, unmoving.
Clara stood over him, her chest heaving, the metallic taste of adrenaline flooding her mouth. She checked his pulse—faint, but alive. She quickly stripped the zip-ties from his tool bag, binding his wrists and ankles securely to the steel balcony stanchions, then gagged him with his own scarf.
She walked back into the penthouse living room, her eyes falling on the suicide note and the bottle of pills.
She picked up her phone, which had fallen beside the entrance. A text message from Julian had just arrived:
“Is it done? The midnight transfer is executing.”
Clara stared at the screen, her fingers steady as she typed out a response from Marcus’s phone sitting on the counter:
“Done. She’s over the edge. Waiting for your signal to call 911.”
May you like
Three seconds later, Julian’s reply lit up the glass:
“Meet me at the office vault. Let’s celebrate our freedom.”
