Chapter 7 - The Safe in the Carriage House
"Step away from the floorboards, Adrian," Celeste said, her voice completely devoid of the sweet, trembling affectation she had worn for six months. It was flat, razor-sharp, and icy. "And slide that service weapon across the floor into the drain. Or Naomi’s blood will be the first thing the crime scene techs find."
Adrian’s jaw clenched. "Celeste—or Elena, whatever your miserable name is—put the gun down. The police are five minutes out. Vance’s offices are already being searched."
"My father is an arrogant old fool who thought he could play board games with lawyers," Celeste sneered, descending two steps, the gun never wavering from Naomi’s face. "I told him months ago: you don't take an empire through the SEC. You take it through the graveyard."
"You tried to murder an old woman in her bed," Naomi said, standing up slowly, placing herself partially in front of Adrian.
"She wasn't just an old woman!" Celeste snarled, her eyes blazing in the shadows. "She was the woman who drove my mother out of Greenwich thirty years ago! Thomas Vale promised my mother everything, and Evelyn made sure we were cast out with pennies! My father spent his life trying to take back what Thomas stole from us. And I came here to finish it."
"My father didn't steal anything from you," Adrian said, his voice deadly low.
"Your father was a coward who died in a car crash because he didn't know when to bow down!" Celeste laughed, a wild, jagged sound that bounced off the stone walls. "And this tape proves Julian cut the lines. Julian kept it as leverage against your mother. Evelyn stole it back twenty years ago. As long as this tape existed, my father was vulnerable. But now..."
She pulled a bottle of industrial acetone from her pocket and unscrewed the cap with her teeth.
"Now, the tape burns. Evelyn dies of 'complications' in the ICU from the digitalis I gave her before Naomi attacked me. And you, Adrian... you will sign over Aegis’s proxy before you join your mother."
"You won't get away with this," Naomi said, taking a microscopic half-step toward the workbench. Her fingers brushed against the handle of an eighteen-inch steel tire iron resting on the lower shelf.
"I already have," Celeste whispered, raising the gun to Naomi’s eyes. "Goodbye, housekeeper."
Celeste’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Naomi didn't hesitate.
She dropped instantly to the floor, sweeping her arm out and grabbing the tire iron.
*BANG.*
The gunshot deafened the carriage house, the bullet splintering the oak floorboard an inch from Naomi’s knee.
Adrian moved with explosive speed. He lunged across the stone floor, tackling Celeste around the waist as she reached the bottom of the stairs.
They crashed into the side of a covered 1961 Jaguar E-Type.
Celeste shrieked like a wild animal, thrashing, clawing at Adrian’s eyes with her manicured nails. The gun fired a second time, shattering the windshield of the classic car in a cascade of tempered safety glass.
Adrian grabbed her wrist, slamming it against the steel fender until the weapon clattered onto the cobblestones.
Celeste kicked him hard in the groin, breaking his grip, and scrambled on her hands and knees toward the dropped VHS tape.
She seized the plastic sleeve, pulling a disposable lighter from her parka.
"Die with your family!" she screamed, striking the flint.
Naomi rose from the floor, swung the steel tire iron like a baseball bat, and connected squarely with Celeste’s right forearm.
*CRACK.*
Celeste shrieked in agony as her radius snapped. The lighter and the tape flew from her grip, landing harmlessly across the stone floor.
Celeste collapsed against the side of the car, clutching her broken arm to her chest, her face pale with agony and shock.
Adrian rose, his face bruised, his knuckles bleeding. He picked up the VHS tape, inspected the casing, and slipped it into his inner coat pocket.
Then he retrieved the fallen gun, cleared the chamber, and looked down at the woman he had loved three weeks ago.
"It's over, Elena," Adrian said, his voice chillingly empty.
May you like
Outside, the blue and red lights of six Connecticut State Police cruisers painted the rain-slicked trees of the Vale estate in flashing fire.
***
