Chapter 14 - BLADE AND BLOODLINE
Lightning tore open the night sky, casting harsh, jagged shadows across the rooftop balcony.
Rain poured down in sheets, soaking both Elena and Marcus in seconds.
Fifty floors below, the city lights flickered through the heavy storm.
Marcus lunged forward without warning, driving his silver blade toward Elena’s throat in a lethal horizontal arc.
Elena ducked beneath the steel blade, feeling the wind of its movement graze her skin.
She slashed upward with her titanium knife.
Marcus twisted his torso back, the tip of her blade slicing clean through his expensive silk necktie.
"You were always fast, little sister!" Marcus roared, spinning on his heel to kick her in the ribs.
The heavy tactical boot caught Elena in the side.
She stumbled back against the wet stone balustrade, air rushing out of her lungs.
Before she could regain her balance, Marcus slammed his forearm against her throat, pinning her against the edge of the sky.
The fifty-story drop was directly behind her back.
One wrong step meant plummeting into the concrete abyss.
Marcus leaned in close, his rain-slicked face twisted in dark triumph.
He pressed his thumb down on the black detonator in his left hand.
"Say goodbye to your board, Elena," Marcus sneered, his knife hovering an inch from her eye.
"In ten seconds, the floor below collapses."
"They die, you die, and I inherit the Swiss accounts automatically."
Elena choked for air, her fingers gripping Marcus’s wrist to keep his blade from sinking into her skull.
She didn't panic.
She looked at the missing pinky finger on his left hand.
The hand holding the detonator.
"You always were too arrogant, Marcus," Elena gasped out, a drop of blood mixing with the rain on her lips.
"You forgot why Father gave me the ring."
Elena raised her right hand.
She didn't strike his face.
She drove the sharp, fifty-carat cut edges of the real Pink Emperor Diamond directly into the open wound of his missing finger stub.
STAB!
The sharp, indestructible diamond cut deep into his nerve endings.
Marcus let out an agonizing, primal scream.
"AAAGHH! MY HAND!"
His grip shattered.
His fingers involuntarily opened.
The black detonator slipped from his hand and fell over the stone ledge, disappearing into the dark rain below.
Before Marcus could recover from the blinding pain, Elena slammed her forehead directly into his nose.
CRACK!
Marcus’s head snapped back, blood spraying into the rain.
Elena spun around, grabbed his soaked lapels, and dragged him over her hip.
She threw him violently onto the slick tiles of the balcony.
Marcus crashed hard, his knife sliding away into the drainage gutter.
He lay on his back, coughing blood, staring up at the dark sky.
Elena stood over him, her titanium knife dripping with rain and blood.
She placed her boot directly over his chest, crushing his sternum.
"It's over, Marcus," Elena said, her voice completely steady despite the roaring wind.
May you like
"The Syndicate isn't yours."
"It never was."
