Chapter 4 - BLOOD MONEY AND BROKEN VOWS"NO!" I screamed, reaching forward, but it was too late.
The silver locket skittered across the floor, spinning on its edge, right past the open threshold of the shattered apartment doorway. It tipped over the edge of the stairwell balcony and plummeted into the dark void three floors down.
Javier was breathing heavily, holding the bloodied piece of wood, his eyes wild with a manic, desperate frenzy. "I can fix this! Mother, I can fix this!" he shrieked, looking at Carmen. "If I give the drive to the man on the phone, he’ll save us!"
Javier turned and bolted down the dark stairwell, chasing after the falling locket like a madman.
"Javier, wait!" Carmen screamed, but her son was already gone, his heavy footsteps echoing down the concrete stairs.
Alexander hit the floor on his hands and knees. Blood trickled from a jagged cut on the back of his scalp, dark and crimson against his graying hair.
"Alexander!" I dropped down beside him, putting my hands over his wound. "Don't move, you're bleeding!"
He pushed my hands away, his eyes blazing with pure, terrifying focus. "I'm fine," he growled. He stood up, unsteady for a fraction of a second, before forcing his body into total alignment.
Harrison turned to his two private guards. "Get down there! Get that drive before the boy does!"
"Move, move, move!" the Tactical Commander shouted, and the entire hallway erupted into a chaos of sprinting officers, private mercenaries, and screaming alarms.
Harrison didn't run. He walked calmly to the edge of the stairwell, looking down into the darkness. "You lost it, Alexander. Twelve years of planning, destroyed by a spineless coward you let into your family."
Alexander wiped the blood from his forehead with the back of his hand. He didn't look angry anymore; he looked completely lethal.
He walked up to Harrison, pulled the silver fountain pen from his pocket, and jammed it hard into the side of Harrison’s neck.
Harrison gasped, his eyes bulging as Alexander pressed a tiny hidden button on the pen’s side.
"That's a biometric lock override," Alexander whispered into Harrison’s ear. "It just sent a signal to your personal bank accounts in Geneva. In three minutes, every transaction made by Vance Global over the last twenty-four hours will be flagged for international terrorism funding."
Harrison’s face turned white. "You... you crazy bastard... you'll ruin the family!"
"You ruined my family the day you targeted my daughter," Alexander said chillingly. He shoved Harrison violently into the arms of two federal marshals. "Arrest him. If he moves, shoot him."
Alexander turned to me and Sofia. "Stay here with the marshals."
"No!" Sofia said, her voice unexpectedly strong. She pulled off her torn veil, throwing it to the floor. She wiped the blood from her lip with the back of her wrist, her eyes full of a fire I had never seen before. "I'm coming with you."
"Sofia, no," I pleaded, grabbing her arm. "It's too dangerous!"
"He did this to me, Mom!" Sofia yelled, tears spilling down her swollen cheeks. "Javier stood outside that door and watched his mother torture me! I want to look him in the eye when he loses everything!"
Alexander looked at his daughter for a long moment. A bitter, proud smile touched his lips. "Then keep close."
We rushed down the stairwell, the sound of commotion ringing out from below. Three flights down, the main lobby was in darkness. The heavy glass front doors of the building had been smashed outward.
Rain was pouring down outside, soaking the pavement.
In the middle of the street, illuminated by the flashing red and blue lights of distant police cruisers, was Javier. He was down on his hands and knees in the pouring rain, frantically feeling along the wet asphalt, searching for the silver locket.
"Where is it?! Where is it?!" Javier shrieked, his pristine designer tuxedo ruined, soaked with mud and rainwater.
He found it. The tiny silver locket gleamed in the reflection of a streetlight near the gutter.
Javier gasped, snatching it up into his trembling hands. "I have it! I have—"
A sharp THUD echoed through the alleyway.
Javier’s body jerked violently. He dropped the locket, clutching his shoulder as dark red blood began to seep through his wet white shirt.
A heavy, dark armored SUV—different from Carmen’s—pulled up to the mouth of the alley. The rear door slid open smoothly.
A tall man in a tailored charcoal coat stepped out into the rain, holding an umbrella in one hand and a suppressed pistol in the other. He didn't look at Javier, who was groaning on the floor. He walked straight toward the shining locket.
Alexander burst out of the lobby doors, pulling Sofia and me behind the stone pillars of the entrance.
When Alexander saw the man in the charcoal coat, his breath hitched in his chest.
"Impossible..." Alexander whispered, his voice shaking with genuine shock.
"Who is that, Alexander?" I asked, terrified.
Alexander’s fists clenched so hard his knuckles turned white.
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"That's Julian Vance," Alexander said. "My son. Sofia's older brother."
HOOOK / CLIFFHANGER: Sofia gasped, stepping out into the light of the entrance. "Julian?... But Dad told me my brother died in a car accident ten years ago!" Julian slowly turned his head toward the sound of her voice. He raised his suppressed pistol, pointed it directly at Sofia’s forehead, and smiled. "Hello, little sister. You should have given up the condo."
