Chapter 38 - When a Mother Becomes the Monster
Sterling’s body jolted in Rachel’s grip. His pale blue eyes widened in shock as dark blood bubbled from his mouth. He looked down at the two smoking holes in his chest, then up at Victoria, utterly betrayed.
"You... insolent... creature..." Sterling wheezed.
"Alexander, darling," Victoria purred, stepping forward to the edge of the gangway. "You always underestimated women. You thought Daniel was a pawn? You thought *I* was a pawn? I orchestrated Daniel’s marriage to Rachel five years ago. I leaked the coordinates of David’s car. I placed the Genesis Ledger code into the girl's medical records. The Covenant was never yours, Alexander. It belongs to those who are willing to do whatever it takes to rule."
She let Sterling’s dead body collapse off the catwalk, plummeting fifty feet down into the churning, foam-choked waters of the dam’s turbine exhaust.
"Technicians! Initiate final retinal lock!" Victoria barked. "Use the high-resolution feed from Daniel’s video! We don't need the girl alive anymore!"
"NO!" Rachel Vance transformed.
The mother did not run. The mother did not seek cover.
Rachel charged down the metal stairs like a thunderbolt, abandoning all defensive protocol. A hail of submachine gunfire erupted from the technicians on the submarine deck. Bullets tore through Rachel’s Kevlar vest, grazing her ribs, ripping open the flesh of her left bicep. She didn't slow down. The physical pain was nothing compared to the white-hot inferno of a mother’s vengeance.
She hit the gangway at full sprint, tackling the first technician and hurling him over the safety railing into the roaring turbine blades below. She snatched his dropped sidearm in mid-air, spinning 180 degrees, and placed three rounds into the heads of the remaining technicians before their weapons could cycle another round.
Victoria shrieked, dropping her champagne glass and frantically raising her gold revolver.
Rachel was already there.
She grabbed Victoria’s wrist, twisting it violently until the radius and ulna snapped with a sickening, wet CRACK. Victoria screamed, dropping the gun.
Rachel did not stop. She grabbed Victoria by her designer tactical collar, lifted her off her feet, and slammed her head-first against the steel hull of the submarine.
Blood splattered across the rivets.
"Bark," Rachel whispered into Victoria's ear, her voice chillingly low, demonic, stripped of all humanity.
Victoria sobbed, her broken wrist dangling uselessly, her perfect face covered in blood and broken teeth. "Rachel... please... Arthur, tell her! Arthur, I’m your wife!"
Arthur stepped onto the gangway, holding Lily close to his side. The old man looked at the woman he had married with eyes colder than glacial ice.
"I have no wife," Arthur Vance said quietly. "I only see a rabid animal that needs to be put down."
Rachel grabbed the heavy industrial mooring chain used to secure the submarine to the concrete dock. With terrifying deliberate calm, she wrapped the cold, rusted iron links three times around Victoria’s neck, locking it tight with a heavy carabiner.
"Bark like a dog," Rachel snarled, shoving Victoria down onto all fours on the bloody metal deck. "Bark for my daughter, Victoria. Bark, and maybe I’ll let you breathe for another ten seconds."
Victoria, shivering uncontrollably, weeping in absolute terror and humiliation, looked up at seven-year-old Lily Vance.
"Woof..." Victoria wept, vomit and blood pooling on the deck. "Woof... please... don't kill me..."
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Lily looked at the woman who had terrorized her for years. The child’s eyes were calm, solemn, and unyielding.
"Mommy," Lily said softly. "Don't be like her. She isn't worth your hands getting dirty."
