Chapter 144 - Stolen Ground Under Fire
Vance’s reflexes were terrifyingly fast. The moment my voice cut through the howling rotor wash, he whipped Clara around, using her trembling body as a human shield while his right hand drew a suppressed sidearm.
"Hold your fire!" Vance bellowed to his contractors, his eyes narrowing as he locked onto me. "Stand down! The primary asset is on deck!"
The twelve mercenaries didn't lower their weapons; they simply pivoted their muzzles toward me, laser designators painting red dots across my chest and tactical vest.
"Marcus!" Clara wailed, her fingernails digging frantically into Vance's forearm. "Marcus, shoot them! Kill them! They dragged me out of the transport van, they said they were going to slaughter us! Marcus, you owe me this! You promised Mom you’d take care of us!"
"I spent a hundred and ten thousand dollars keeping the bailiffs away from your door while you plotted behind my back to forge my signature on the title deed, Clara," I said, my voice ice-cold, my boots planted firmly on the frozen slate. "You popped champagne on my terrace while I was risking my life at sea. You don't get to lecture me about family promises."
"Marcus, please!" Arthur sobbed, crawling toward me across the bloody, slush-covered snow, dragging his precious briefcase behind him. "I was only trying to protect your sister! She had debts—terrible people were coming for her! You always had the Navy, you always had money! We had nothing!"
"You had a four-million-dollar estate I built with my bare hands and my blood, Arthur," I snarled, not shifting my aim an inch. "And now you brought a death squad to my doorstep."
"Touching reunion," Vance sneered, his grip tightening around Clara’s throat until she choked for air. "Lieutenant Commander Marcus Caldwell. The golden boy of Naval Special Warfare. Your mother told us you’d survive the Mendocino Ridge, but I honestly doubted you had the stomach to kill your own blood to stop what’s coming."
"My mother told you?" I repeated, a cold knot tightening in my gut.
"Eleanor doesn't care about your little domestic squabbles, Commander," Vance said with a grim chuckle. "She needed this silo unlocked. She knew Arthur was greedy enough to try to steal Whispering Pines the second you deployed, and she knew Clara's legal circus would draw local authorities away from our extraction corridor. You were never the heir, Marcus. You were the distraction."
Before I could process the poison in his words, a tremendous subterranean tremor ripped through the ground.
The entire four-acre lawn buckled upward. A six-foot crack opened in the frozen turf between Vance and me, spewing boiling water and sulfurous steam high into the freezing air. The shockwave threw Arthur onto his back, his forged papers scattering into the roaring wind like useless white leaves.
"Now!" I roared.
May you like
I dropped to one knee, shifting my rifle's aim two inches above Clara's left shoulder, and squeezed the trigger.
***
