Chapter 14 - Masks Slipping
In the pitch black of the ballroom, Julian didn't flinch. He moved with brutal, terrifying efficiency.
Within two seconds of the blast, he had pulled Lena behind an overturned banquet table, shielding her body with his own. From beneath his custom-tailored tuxedo jacket, he produced a suppressed SIG Sauer P320—a weapon no civilian landscape architect had any business carrying.
"Stay down," he commanded. It wasn't the gentle, patient Julian who had taught her about native coastal oaks. It was an operative who had survived kill houses in Fallujah.
Gunfire ripped through the heavy oak doors of the ballroom. Rounds chewed through the plaster above their heads, raining white dust over Lena’s emerald silk.
"You lied to me," Lena hissed, her heart pounding against her ribs, the visceral memory of that dark night in Carter's basement clawing at her throat. "Every word. Every late night at the nursery. You were reporting to Elias!"
"I resigned my commission the night he broke your leg!" Julian fired two double-taps through the smoke, sending an armed assailant collapsing to the marble floor with a muffled thud. "I was supposed to protect you in Washington. I failed. When your father pulled you out, I tracked you to California on my own dime. Elias found out three months later and offered me a choice: work for him, or let him put me in a hole. I chose you, Lena!"
"Don't flatter yourself!"
"Move!" Julian shoved her toward the kitchen service corridor as a volley of automatic fire shredded the table where they had been hiding.
They burst through the double swinging doors into the commercial kitchen. Stainless steel counters reflected the red emergency strobe lights.
At the far end of the kitchen, standing by the industrial meat locker with a tactical shotgun in his hands, was Carter Sterling.
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He was thinner, his designer stubble replaced by a jagged, uneven beard, a manic, wild fury burning in his bloodshot eyes. The golden boy of Potomac society had been reduced to a cornered animal.
"Hello, darling," Carter laughed, the shotgun leveling straight at Lena’s chest. "I see you found yourself a replacement dog."
