Chapter 7 - SURRENDER OR BURNT EARTHThe facility was burning around us. Flames roared along the electrical conduits overhead, sending showers of sparks down like fiery rain. The alarm sirens wailed in a hypnotic, rhythmic rhythm, drowning out the sound of distant police sirens approaching the outer perimeter.
Cross was desperate. The polished mob boss was gone; in his place was a wounded predator backed into a corner, clutching a gun with bleeding hands.
"Put the gun down, Daniel," I said softly, stepping sideways to cover Maya as much as possible with my body. "You don't want this."
"I spent twenty years building an empire!" Cross screamed over the roar of the fire. "Twenty years living in the shadows of men like Vance! That pendant gives me absolute immunity! It gives me control over the entire city!"
"It's just numbers on a chip," I said, taking a slow, calculated step forward. "And my daughter is a human being."
"Step back!" Cross raised the hammer on the revolver. "I will kill her, Evelyn! I swear to God I will!"
Maya pulled the oxygen mask down slightly, her small voice cutting through the roaring flames. "Mommy... he's scared."
Cross blinked, taken aback by the child's words. "Shut up!"
"She's right," I said, my voice as cold as ice. "You're terrified because for the first time in your life, you're standing in front of someone who has nothing left to lose."
I didn't draw my gun. I raised both my hands, showing him my empty palms.
"Take the pendant," I said quietly.
Cross frowned, suspicion flickering in his eyes. "What?"
"Take it," I repeated, dropping the silver pendant onto the concrete floor between us. It glinted under the flickering firelight. "Take the money, take the leverage, take your political immunity. Just let me walk out of here with my daughter."
Cross stared at the pendant, then at me. The greed in his eyes was a disease, overriding every instinct of self-preservation he possessed.
Slowly, keeping his gun trained on me, he lowered his body to scoop up the pendant with his left hand.
The classic mistake.
The moment his eyes dropped to the floor for a fraction of a second, I moved.
I didn't shoot him. I snatched the heavy brass fire extinguisher mounted on the column beside me and swung it like a sledgehammer.
CRUNCH.
The cylinder struck the revolver, shattering Cross's hand and sending the gun flying into the raging flames. Before he could recover, I grabbed his lapels, spun him around, and slammed him into the control panel.
I pulled the steel hand-cuffs off a dead guard's belt and clicked them tightly around Cross's left wrist, anchoring him securely to the heavy steel support beam right next to the growing fire.
Cross gasped, clutching his broken hand, staring at me in sheer terror as the flames licked the heels of his leather shoes.
"Evelyn! Wait! Please!" Cross shrieked, all his composure crumbling into pathetic desperation. "Don't leave me here! Unlock me! You're a good person now! You're a mother!"
I gathered Maya into my arms, wrapping my coat over her face to protect her from the smoke.
May you like
I looked back at Cross one last time, my eyes completely hollow.
"I was never a good person, Daniel," I whispered. "I'm just a mother."
