Chapter 17 - The Huntress
Cooper hesitated, his little arms wrapping around my neck, kissing my cheek with desperate innocence. "I love you, Mommy."
"I love you more than life, sweetheart. Go. Fast."
He slipped into the lower conduit like a shadow, disappearing into the dark. I waited until I heard the faint clinking of his shoes disappear into the wine cellar below before I checked the magazine of my weapon. Five rounds left. Five chances to tear down the nightmare that had started the day Carter humiliated me in front of our child.
I didn't try to sneak through the front door of the library. Instead, I moved silently down the passage to the hidden service dumbwaiter behind the massive floor-to-ceiling brick hearth.
I reached up, unlatched the cast-iron counterweight system, and kicked the rear decorative firebox panel straight outward into the hearth.
The cast-iron grating crashed violently onto the stone hearth with an explosion of soot, ash, and iron.
"What the hell was that?" one of the mercenaries barked, spinning toward the fireplace, rifle raised.
I stepped out from behind the black soot, leveled my pistol, and fired twice.
The first shot took the mercenary cleanly through the throat. The second punched through the shoulder of the second guard, sending him spinning backward over a mahogany coffee table with a crash of splintering glass.
"Claire!" Evelyn shrieked, scrambling behind an antique leather sofa like a terrified cockroach.
The third guard reacted instantly, swinging his submachine gun toward me, but before he could squeeze off a burst, the heavy library doors burst open from the hallway.
A deafening barrage of automatic gunfire ripped through the room.
The remaining mercenary dropped instantly, riddled with rounds from behind.
Through the cordite smoke, Frank stepped into the library, his face bloodied, his combat harness soaked in snow, carrying a short-barreled tactical shotgun. Behind him were two surviving members of our executive protection team, their weapons sweeping the room with cold, professional precision.
"Clear!" Frank bellowed.
Carter dropped the tablet and scrambled backward against the bay window, pulling Evelyn up by her arm to use her as a human shield.
"Stay back! Stay back or I swear I'll kill her!" Carter screamed, his mind completely fracturing under the sudden, absolute collapse of his plan.
Evelyn's eyes bulged in utter horror as she realized Carter had shoved her directly into the line of fire. "Carter! What are you doing?! Let go of me! You bastard!"
"Shut up! You told me this was a guarantee! You told me Arthur was helpless!" Carter shrieked, pressing his pistol against the side of his mistress's head, backing toward the shattered French doors that opened out onto the snow-covered balcony.
I lowered my pistol slightly, stepping out of the hearth, brushing the soot from my face.
My father was breathing heavily, slumped in his chair, but when he saw me standing tall and unharmed, the faintest ghost of a victorious smile touched his cracked lips.
"Frank," I said, my voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling with chilling calm. "Tend to my father."
"On it, Claire," Frank growled, gesturing to his men to secure Dad and bandage his shoulder wound.
I stepped forward, my boots crunching on the broken glass, walking toward Carter and Evelyn with deliberate, unhurried steps.
"Claire... Claire, please," Evelyn sobbed, her high-society glamour utterly destroyed, snot and tears mixing with the mascara running down her pale cheeks. "It was him! It was all Carter's idea! He hated you! He was jealous of your family! He planned the birthday party—he wanted to break you so you wouldn't fight the divorce!"
"You held the camera, Evelyn," I said, stopping five paces away, the nine-millimeter steady in my grip. "You zoomed in on my face while frosting was jammed into my sinuses. You laughed when my five-year-old boy screamed until he threw up. You made sure the world saw my humiliation."
"Claire, listen to me," Carter pleaded, his voice cracking, backing closer to the frozen railing. The blizzard raged outside, wind howling through the shattered glass doors. "We're married. We have a child together! Think of Cooper! You can't let them kill me—I'm his father!"
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"A father protects his son," I replied, my voice dropping to a whisper that cut through the roaring wind. "You are just a parasite who mistook our mercy for weakness."
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