Chapter 7 - THE PURSUIT
The heavy lamp struck Julian across the collarbone, knocking his aim off just as the suppressed pistol discharged with a muffled *phut*.
The round ripped through the mahogany headboard behind Becca, showering her with wooden splinters.
"Go! The servants' stairs!" Becca yelled, shoving the three girls toward the narrow, concealed door behind the master closet—a historic passage Mrs. Gable had pointed out during the tour.
Julian cursed, stumbling forward, his eyes burning with psychotic rage as he leveled the weapon again. "You little bitch!"
Becca didn't flee into the closet. She knew the children were too slow; if Julian pursued them down the narrow staircase, he would catch them at the landing and shoot them like fish in a barrel. She had to draw him away.
She kicked the heavy velvet armchair directly into Julian’s shins, sending him sprawling across the slick hardwood floor, then bolted out through the main bedroom door into the cavernous, darkened hallway of the second floor.
"Val!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, knowing it was useless, knowing the bunker was sealed, but hoping against hope that some shred of the estate's staff was still alive and loyal. "Help!"
Thunder exploded overhead, rattling the glass of the two-story picture window at the end of the grand hall.
Behind her, Julian recovered with terrifying speed. His leather boots pounded across the floorboards. "You're running the wrong way, girl! There's nowhere to go!"
Becca sprinted toward the grand staircase. The estate was vast, a maze of stone and shadow, but in the pitch-black darkness, every corner was a trap. As she reached the top of the marble stairs, a blinding flash of lightning illuminated a figure stepping out from the shadows below.
It was one of Julian’s hired security men, rifle raised.
Becca gasped, skidding on the polished floor, pivoting hard to her left toward the third-floor library annex. She slammed through the heavy oak doors, throwing the brass latch just as Julian’s shoulder slammed into the outside panels with the force of a battering ram.
*CRACK.*
The wood groaned.
"Open the door, Rebecca!" Julian’s muffled voice was venomous, stripped of all humanity. "You think you're saving them? They were broken the night Elena died! They’re dead weight! You're dying for a family that isn't even yours!"
Becca frantically backed away, searching the darkened library for a weapon. The room was two stories high, lined with ancient leather-bound books, rolling brass ladders, and a monumental stone fireplace.
On the mantle sat a set of antique wrought-iron fireplace tools.
She lunged forward, seizing the heavy iron poker. Its weight was reassuring, cold and lethal in her trembling hands.
*BOOM.*
The library door hinges gave way. The left panel splintered, and Julian Vance stepped through the dust and splintered wood, his gun raised, blood trickling from a cut above his left eyebrow where the lamp had clipped him.
"End of the line," Julian panted, his smile returning, twisted and grotesque in the gloom.
He didn't fire immediately. He wanted her to know she had lost. He wanted the satisfaction of watching the defiance drain from her eyes.
"You know what Elena's last words were?" Julian whispered, stepping forward, his shoes crunching on the splintered oak. "She begged me to spare them. She begged me from the front seat while the water was rising to her neck. She thought our friendship meant something. But money... real money, Rebecca... it doesn't care about friendship."
"She didn't beg you," a voice echoed from the shadows behind the towering bookshelves.
Julian froze.
From the high balcony of the library's second tier, a dark silhouette emerged into the pale lightning glow.
Valentino Duca.
His face was streaked with soot, his white dress shirt torn and soaked with rain, his dark hair wild. In his hands, he held a heavy tactical combat shotgun, leveled directly at Julian’s chest.
"Val?" Julian’s voice cracked, the color vanishing from his face as though he had seen a phantom rise from the grave. "How... the vents were sealed—"
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"You forgot who built this house, Julian," Valentino said, his voice dropping into a guttural, terrifying roar that shook the very foundations of the room. "You forgot who owns the earth you're standing on."
***
