Chapter 7 - The Face Behind the Mask
The red emergency strobes painted the room in bloody pulses of light.
Evelyn recognized that voice immediately. It wasn’t a faceless mercenary.
“Victoria?” Evelyn whispered, horror and disgust tangling in her throat.
The operative pulled off her balaclava with one gloved hand, shaking out her blonde hair. It was Victoria Vance—Julian and Marcus’s younger sister, the so-called socialite philanthropist who ran the Vance family’s overseas charities.
“Surprised, sister-in-law?” Victoria smirked, the barrel of her suppressed handgun perfectly steady. “You always were too simple for this family. You thought Julian was the only one who wanted you gone?”
Marcus didn’t lower his weapon, aiming directly at his sister’s forehead. “Lower the gun, Victoria. You’re way out of your depth.”
“Am I, Marcus?” Victoria laughed, a brittle, manic sound. “Look out the window. There are six vehicles on the street below. Julian didn’t just hire local muscle. He paid half a million to wipe the slate clean tonight. Once Evelyn is dead, we take the kid, Julian gets the inheritance, and I get full control of the European logistics branch.”
“You’d murder your own niece’s mother for money?” Evelyn stepped forward, her voice shaking with pure fury.
“Oh, spare me the mother-of-the-year routine!” Victoria snarled, tightening her finger on the trigger. “Julian was right. You should have stayed in the trailer park where he found you!”
A low, metallic scrape echoed from the hallway.
Victoria’s eyes flicked sideways for half a second.
That half-second was all Evelyn needed.
Evelyn threw her entire weight forward, tackling Victoria around the waist. The two women crashed violently over the glass coffee table, shattering it into thousands of sharp fragments.
A gunshot went off, the bullet lodging harmlessly into the ceiling.
Victoria clawed at Evelyn’s face, but Evelyn pinned the younger woman’s wrists to the floor, her knee driving hard into Victoria’s ribs just as Julian had done to her countless times before.
“You touch my daughter,” Evelyn hissed into Victoria’s ear, “and I will rip your world apart piece by piece.”
Evelyn twisted Victoria’s arm until the gun clattered away across the floor. Marcus swept it up instantly.
May you like
Outside, the unmistakable sound of heavy police sirens began wailing from four blocks away, rapidly converging on the building.
Marcus checked his phone. “The FBI just intercepted Julian’s wire transfers. The feds are here.”
