Chapter 9 - THE FINAL BULLETWhitaker gasped, his eyes going wide as a small, neat hole appeared dead center in his chest. He staggered backward, tripping over his own expensive leather shoes, and collapsed hard onto the wet stone driveway.
We all turned.
Standing on the porch steps, lowering her smoking Walther PPK, was Beatrice. Her silver hair was singed, her elegant dress stained with soot, but her aim was as lethal as ever.
"Did you really think a bureaucrat like Paul was going to let you walk away with the prize money, darling?" Beatrice sneered, coughing slightly as smoke drifted from the doorway behind her. "Men like Paul only look out for number one. If he went down, he was going to take all of us with him. I simply... expedited the process."
"Beatrice, drop the gun," Grant warned, raising his shotgun again.
"Oh, save it, brother," Beatrice laughed bitterly, her voice echoing in the courtyard. "The house is burning, the federal servers have the files, and the game is over."
Instead of turning the gun on Grant or Ethan, Beatrice placed the barrel of the Walther against her own temple.
"I told you," she whispered, her eyes locking onto Grant one last time. "I wanted my fifty percent."
Before anyone could move, the shot echoed through the night.
Beatrice collapsed onto the porch steps, her tea cup rolling away into the dark, shattering into a thousand pieces against the stone.
The courtyard fell into absolute, stunned silence. Only the sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder and closer by the second as the local police and federal backup converged on the burning estate.
Ethan stared at his aunt’s body, his hands shaking at his sides. The anger in his eyes had burned away, leaving behind a hollow, exhausted emptiness.
"It's over," Ethan whispered, his voice cracking. "Everything my family built... it's all ash."
"Not everything," a deep, steady voice said beside him.
May you like
Grant lowered his shotgun and looked down at his son. Then, slowly, he turned his gaze toward me, standing in the rain with a stolen federal rifle in my hands, dirt on my jacket, and blood on my boots.
For the first time since I walked through those front doors, Grant Blackwood didn't look at me with dismissal. He looked at me with absolute, undeniable respect.
