Chapter 27 - Fire on the Ridge
"Don't give it to her, Lena!" Elias roared, raising his cane to signal his security team. "If she gets that ledger, the Sterling trust dissolves into European courts! The entire Vance legacy dies tonight!"
"The Vance legacy is built on the bones of girls like our daughter, Elias!" Eleanor shouted back, her voice ringing with cold fury. "Take the shot!"
Gunfire erupted.
The silence of the Virginia night shattered into violent chaos. Suppressed bursts clattered against the stone mausoleum, sending shards of antique marble flying through the air. Elias’s men engaged Eleanor’s tactical unit, muzzle flashes illuminating the cemetery in strobe-like bursts of violence.
Julian moved with blinding speed. He lunged forward, tackling Lena to the ground behind the heavy granite base of the sarcophagus as high-velocity rounds chewed through the boxwoods above their heads.
"Stay down!" Julian yelled, shielding her body with his own as concrete dust rained down upon them.
"You lied to me!" Lena screamed over the gunfire, shoving his chest with all her strength. "You were Eleanor’s dog the entire time!"
Julian took the impact of her blow, his hazel eyes fierce and burning with an intensity she had never seen. "I took Eleanor’s money to get the assignment, Lena! But when Carter broke your leg, I wasn't following her orders, and I wasn't following Elias's! I stayed because I chose *you*! Do you hear me? I chose you!"
A bullet ricocheted inches above Julian's shoulder, throwing sparks into the dark. On the gravel path, Elias Vance was being dragged backward toward an armored SUV by his remaining security men, firing a silver semiautomatic pistol into the fog.
Eleanor’s operators were pressing forward, methodically cutting down Elias’s perimeter.
"The box!" Julian yelled, grabbing Lena by the tactical vest and hauling her up. "Lena, if either of them gets that ledger, you become their permanent prisoner. Elias will use it to rebuild his syndicate; Eleanor will use it to destroy everything in Washington. It doesn't belong to them anymore!"
Lena looked down at the vintage dispatch box in her arms. The red wax seal was cracked.
She didn't need to read the names inside to know what it contained: the bribes, the covert operations, the assassinations, the arranged marriages—the blood-soaked scaffolding of the American ruling class. Her father had sacrificed her innocence for it. Her mother had sacrificed her childhood for it. Carter Sterling had sacrificed his humanity for it.
"Then let it burn," Lena whispered.
May you like
She pulled an emergency incendiary flare from Julian's tactical belt, struck the striker against the cap, and slammed the blazing, white-hot phosphorus directly into the open seal of the box.
***
