Chapter 14 - The Final Bloodline
Elena didn't hesitate. She threw her entire body over Leo, slamming the boy flat against the dirt and shielding his head with her arms as bullets tore into the turf inches from her boots.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Christian reached the tree line in four strides, ripping open an emergency ground locker concealed beneath a decorative stone bench. He pulled out a customized semiautomatic rifle Arthur had stashed during the property's construction, racked the bolt, and fired a rapid burst directly into the helicopter’s tail rotor gearbox.
Sparks showered from the rear housing. The chopper yawed violently to the right, the pilot struggling against the sudden loss of anti-torque control.
Victoria cursed over the loudspeaker as the aircraft lurched, her shot going wild and splintering the wooden porch steps.
"Bring it down!" Christian roared, advancing across the open lawn while firing continuous, controlled bursts into the cockpit glass.
The pilot banked hard toward the cliffside, fighting for altitude as black smoke poured from the tail. Victoria leaned out of the open door, her face twisted in pure, unadulterated venom. She raised a small, square detonator above her head.
"If I can't have the Sterling empire, nobody gets out alive!" she shrieked over the roar of the engines. "Say goodbye to your boy, Elena!"
She thumbed the switch.
A deafening series of secondary charges detonated along the cliffside foundation directly beneath the house. The ground groaned, cracking open in deep, jagged fissures as tons of rock and soil began sliding toward the roaring Atlantic below.
"The cliff is collapsing!" Elena yelled, scooping Leo into her chest and scrambling toward higher ground as the lawn split beneath her feet.
Christian dropped the empty rifle, sprinting through the falling debris. He grabbed Elena's arm with one hand and hooked his other around a thick, ancient oak tree just as the entire back half of the cedar house sheared away, plummeting into the churning waves five hundred feet down.
The helicopter, critically damaged by Christian’s gunfire, lost its remaining tail rotor blades against the cliff's rocky outcrop. The aircraft spun violently in mid-air, rolling inverted before smashing headfirst into the granite rocks at the base of the bluff, exploding in a blinding fireball that was instantly swallowed by the rising tide.
Silence descended over the shattered coastline.
Christian hung onto the tree root with every ounce of strength in his bleeding arms, holding Elena and Leo suspended above the yawning abyss.
"I’ve got you," Christian grunted, his muscles tearing under the strain as he hauled them up onto the solid bedrock of the upper ridge. "I’ve got you both. Don't look down."
Elena scrambled onto the safe grass, pulling Leo tight against her collarbone. The boy was shaking, his tiny hands gripping her shirt with the exact same frantic strength he had shown in the ballroom six months ago.
"Mommy..." Leo whispered, his hazel eyes wide with tears. "Is the bad lady gone for real?"
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Elena looked over the ledge at the burning wreckage sinking beneath the white froth of the ocean, then looked up at Christian, whose hands were bloody and torn from the rock face.
"Yes, baby," Elena said, her voice steady and clear against the wind. "She's gone. For good this time."
