Chapter 5 - POINT BLANK
Two days later, the quiet neighborhood was shrouded in a thick evening fog. The news reported that Richard Sterling had skipped bail and was officially a federal fugitive, believed to be attempting to flee the country via private jet.
I was in Gemma’s bedroom, carefully packing her favorite stuffed animals into a storage box to preserve them. The house was quiet, save for the soft patter of rain against the windowpane.
Suddenly, a heavy thud echoed from the front hallway, followed by the metallic click of a door being forced open.
My heart plummeted.
I grabbed the hand gun from my nightstand and stepped out into the hallway, moving quietly down the stairs.
Standing in the center of my living room was Richard Sterling.
He was no longer wearing his polished tailored suits. He wore dark, tactical clothing, his silver hair unkempt, his eyes wild and bloodshot with desperation. In his gloved right hand, he held a suppressed pistol.
And in front of him, held tightly by her collar with a gun pressed against her temple, was my mother.
“Drop the gun, Naomi!” Sterling screamed, his voice unhinged. “Drop it or I blow her brains out right here!”
My mother was weeping hysterically, her hands clutching at Sterling’s arm. “Naomi! Save me! Please God, Naomi, don’t let him kill me!”
I raised my weapon, aiming it directly at Sterling’s forehead.
“You’re a cornered rat, Sterling,” I said, my voice steady despite the adrenaline surging through my veins. “The police are hunting you nationwide. Shooting us won’t get you out of the country.”
“I don’t care about leaving anymore!” Sterling snarled, his grip tightening on my mother’s throat. “You ruined my life! You destroyed thirty years of work in three days! But I’m not going to federal prison. I need the master encryption key for that drive. You give me the passkey to delete the offsite backup files, or your dear mother dies first, and then you!”
My mother looked at me, her eyes pleading for her life. “Naomi, give it to him! Give him whatever he wants! I’m your mother! You can’t let him kill your mother!”
I looked at the woman who had abandoned me in my darkest hour. The woman who had valued a tropical vacation over my daughter’s funeral. The woman who had allowed her husband to do business with the monster who killed my family.
For a split second, a dark, terrifying thought crossed my mind: Let him do it.
Sterling saw the hesitation in my eyes and smiled sadistically. “Look at her, Eleanor,” Sterling sneered into my mother’s ear. “Your own daughter doesn’t care if you live or die. She hates you. You raised a monster.”
“She’s right,” I said softly.
My mother gasped.
“I do hate you,” I said, staring into my mother’s eyes. “You failed me as a mother. You failed Gemma as a grandmother. You deserve everything that’s happening to you.”
Sterling grinned, preparing to squeeze the trigger. “Then say goodbye to—”
“But,” I interrupted, stepping forward, “I am not like you.”
Before Sterling could react, I didn't shoot at him—I aimed directly at the wall behind him and fired into the smart-home control panel.
The bullet shattered the primary breaker box embedded in the wall.
INSTANT DARKNESS.
The entire house plummeted into pitch-black shadow.
My mother shrieked. A suppressed gunshot coughed in the dark—PTT!—missing me by inches and shattering a vase on the table behind me.
Having lived in this house for six years, I knew every step, every floorboard, every corner in complete darkness. Sterling did not.
I dropped to a low crouch, silently sliding across the hardwood floor toward the left side of the room.
May you like
I heard Sterling cursing in the dark, his heavy boots stumbling over the rug. “Where are you, you little bitch?!”
“Right behind you,” I whispered into the dark.
