Chapter 6 - The Broken Altar
“Where is he, Victor?” Julian spoke, his tone so quiet that the roaring flames behind them seemed to soften in submission. His pistol remained pointed dead-center at Vance’s forehead.
“In the chapel up the ridge,” Vance replied, tossing the soaked red mitten into the mud between them. Elena lunged forward to grab it, pressing the wet fabric against her lips, weeping uncontrollably. “Don’t bother shooting me, Julian. My boys have thermal scopes zeroed on that little chapel. If my heartbeat stops, or if you don’t walk through that door alone with the ledger within ten minutes, they turn that ancient wooden church into kindling.”
“The ledger is in my hand,” Julian lied smoothly, tapping the heavy leather notebook tucked into his inner breast pocket. “Let the woman and the boy go. You take me, you take the ledger, you take the city.”
Vance chuckled, a dry, rasping sound that rattled in his throat. “Your uncle warned me you’d try to play the martyr. It doesn’t suit you, nephew. You’re a dog just like the rest of us. Bring the girl. Uncle wants to see the pretty thing that made you abandon the family seat for three whole years.”
Vance turned his back, entirely confident in his leverage, and began walking up the steep, winding dirt path leading toward the abandoned wooden chapel sitting atop the ridge.
Julian caught Elena by the elbow, lifting her from the mud. Her gown was shredded at the hem, her bare feet bloodied from broken glass and gravel. He stripped off his heavy wool overcoat and wrapped it around her shivering shoulders.
“Julian,” she choked out through chattering teeth, “he’s going to kill us all. You know he won’t let anyone walk out of that chapel.”
“He won’t,” Julian whispered, leaning down so his lips brushed her ear, shielding his mouth from any distant binoculars. “Which is why you are not walking inside.”
Elena looked at him, her hazel eyes wild with panic. “What are you talking about? Leo is in there!”
“Under the chapel floorboards is an old root cellar,” Julian murmured rapidly. “The entrance is obscured by the rear cemetery wall. While I walk through the front doors and give Vance his theater, you crawl through that cellar. You get Leo. You run into the western tree line where I have a secondary extraction team waiting.”
May you like
“And you?” Elena’s voice broke.
Julian offered her a ghost of a smile, cold and devastatingly handsome despite the blood dripping down his temple. “I’m going to introduce my uncle to the consequences of touching my family.”
