Chapter 7 - THE FINAL SHOWDOWN"Get it off me! SHOOT IT!" Sarah screamed, stumbling backward over a rusted chain as Bruno bounded toward her with terrifying speed.
Two guards raised their rifles to fire at the dog.
I didn't hesitate. I emptied the remaining rounds of my magazine. Both men dropped before their fingers could even twitch on the triggers.
Bruno didn't attack Sarah. Instead, with astonishing discipline, he skidded to a halt just inches from her face, planting his massive paws on either side of her shoulders, pinning her securely against the rusted chain-link fence.
He didn't bite. He just growled—a sound so deep and resonant that it rattled the teeth in Sarah’s skull. Saliva dripped onto her designer trench coat. She froze, trembling from head to toe, her face stark white with absolute terror.
I walked over slowly, the empty pistol hanging loosely in my right hand. The remaining guards had dropped their weapons, raising their hands high into the air, staring at me with wide, hollow eyes.
I stopped three feet away from my sister.
"You always did overestimate your intelligence, Sarah," I said, my voice eerily quiet against the rushing sound of the dark river below.
Sarah breathed heavily, her chest heaving beneath the leather coat. She tried to maintain a shred of defiance, but her voice betrayed her. "Go ahead, Viktor. Kill your own sister. Prove you're just as much of a monster as they say."
I looked down at her. I thought about the empty grave upstate. I thought about the five years of phantom grief. I thought about little Elena Vasquez lying in her white coffin with a stuffed bunny, her life stolen away because of a stolen crate of military hardware and a greedy, power-hungry hypocrite.
"I'm not going to kill you, Sarah," I said softly.
She blinked, surprised. "What?"
"Death is too easy. It's a clean exit." I turned to Paulie—who had just pulled up with two backup cars, having ignored my order to stay away the moment he heard gunfire over the tactical radio channel. "Paulie!"
"Boss! We heard the shots—" Paulie yelled, jumping out of the lead cruiser with a submachine gun raised, only to stop dead in his tracks as he saw Sarah pinned against the fence by a giant dog. He stared, his jaw hitting his chest. "Wait... Is that... is that Sarah? But she's—she's dead!"
"She was," I said coldly. "Not anymore. Paulie, load her into the trunk of the secondary car."
"Viktor, no! You can't do this to me! I'm your sister!" Sarah shrieked, thrashing against Bruno's weight, but the dog didn't budge an inch—he was an unmovable mountain of muscle.
"You gave up your family the day you decided an innocent seven-year-old girl was a loose end," I said, turning my back on her. "Take her to the federal holding cells downtown, Paulie. Anonymous drop. Include the tablet, the shipping manifests, and the recordings of her meeting with the corrupt procurement officers."
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Paulie’s eyes widened in shock. "The feds, boss? You're turning her over to the government?"
"Let her explain to a federal judge how she faked her own death to build a smuggling ring," I said, sliding a fresh magazine into my pistol with a sharp clack. "Let her spend the rest of her natural life behind bulletproof glass in a maximum-security federal penitentiary. That's the only place safe enough from what she's earned."
