Chapter 16 - A Father’s Reckoning“Stop right there, Moretti!”
The sharp, commanding voice cut through the roar of the helicopter blades. Arthur Vance stepped forward from the shadow of the fuselage, holding a compact detonator in his left hand, his face lined with age but his eyes burning with the cold, calculating cruelty of a career criminal.
“Drop the iron, Adrian, or I push this button and send this entire pier—and my dear granddaughter—straight to the bottom of the lake,” Arthur called out, smiling thinly.
I stopped fifty feet away, keeping my submachine gun lowered at my side while my eyes locked onto Anna and little Lily. Lily was crying softly, her small hands clutching empty air where her stuffed rabbit used to be.
“You’ve lived past your expiration date, Arthur,” I said, my voice cutting through the wind like a razor. “Dragging a four-year-old child into a twenty-year-old vendetta? That’s not business. That’s cowardice.”
“Cowardice?” Arthur laughed, a dry, rattling sound. “This is survival, son. Your father thought he could build an empire on honor and clean hands. Look where it got him. And look where it’s getting you—surrounded by ghosts and maids.”
“Adrian!” Sarah shouted from behind me, raising her pistol.
“Don’t!” I warned, holding my hand out to stop her.
Arthur’s eyes shifted from me to Sarah, a flicker of genuine shock crossing his weathered features for the first time. “Sarah? You foolish girl... you should have stayed out of the federal archive.”
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“I’m ending it, Dad,” Sarah said, her voice shaking violently as she stepped past me into the beam of the helicopter’s landing lights. “Twenty years of hiding behind fake names and dead files ends right here.”
“Then die with him,” Arthur snarled, his thumb pressing down hard toward the red button on the detonator.
