Chapter 91 - The Sister on the Roof
The cold wind sliced through the brick corridor of the alley, biting into my exposed skin, but my heart had entirely ceased to pump blood from fear; it was hammering from sheer, disbelieving shock. I stared upward through the sleet, past the rusty fire escape ladders and peeling iron gutters, up to the frosted lip of the masonry rooftop.
There she stood.
Evelyn.
The sister who had spent years manipulating every thread of our family's misery. The bride whose vanity had shattered under the echoing recordings of that silver flash drive in the grand ballroom. The woman who had plunged down the side of Mount Washington’s frozen precipice into the swirling white abyss, presumed broken on the granite fangs below. Yet she was alive, her ripped silk gown flapping against the wind beneath a tactical web belt, cradling a black long-range rifle with the steady, lethal posture of a trained predator.
"Evelyn...?" Julian whispered, his voice trembling slightly for the first time since he had cornered us. The polished confidence that had armored him through every betrayal cracked open. He stared up at the crimson beam dancing against his heart. "How are you breathing? The gorge was an eight-hundred-foot vertical drop."
"I hit the service gondola cable halfway down, Julian," Evelyn replied, her voice projected down into the narrow alley with terrifying clarity, devoid of the theatrical hysteria she usually wore like cheap perfume. "Tore through two guide ropes, dislocated my shoulder, and dragged myself out through the drainage vents while your lapdogs were busy playing with their toys in the snow. You thought you could eliminate me and take Arthur’s empire all for yourself?"
"Evelyn, be reasonable," Julian said smoothly, though his hands remained frozen in the air at shoulder level. He cast a discreet glance toward the mercenary to his right, whose jaw was clenched beneath the red pinpoint burning between his eyes. "We built this leverage together. The Vance trust wasn't meant for one person. With Arthur out of the picture and Claire trapped here, we can finalize the biometric harvest from the girl. You can take your cut and live anywhere on this planet like a queen."
"A cut?" Evelyn barked a sharp, dry laugh that sounded like dry kindling snapping in a fire. "You tried to drop me into a glacier, you miserable bastard. You spent six months courting me, feeding me lies about our bright future, while you had a remote demolition switch mapped to my bridal suite. You didn't want a partner. You wanted a scapegoat."
Lily clutched my coat, her little body trembling, but her gaze didn't leave her aunt. "Auntie Evelyn...?" she whispered into the freezing dark.
Evelyn’s eyes flickered down toward the sound of the child’s voice. For a split second, the cold, murderous mask on her face fractured, revealing the raw, haunted girl underneath—the girl who had grown up in the same oppressive, shadow-drenched halls of Arthur Vance’s legacy as I had.
"Claire," Evelyn called down, her tone softening just enough for me to hear the sister I had buried long before the wedding. "Take Lily behind the iron transformer housing at the end of the alley. Now."
"Don't you dare move, Claire," Julian hissed through his teeth, his eyes darting toward the shadows. "The second you step out of line, my sniper team on the ridge—"
*Thwip.*
The suppressed crack of Evelyn's rifle echoed with muffled finality. The mercenary standing to Julian’s left didn't even scream; the red dot on his temple blossomed into darkness as his knees folded beneath him, his heavy body crashing into the icy gravel.
"I took out your ridge team twenty minutes ago, Julian," Evelyn said coldly, cycling another round into the chamber with a rhythmic metallic click. "Move, Claire!"
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I didn't hesitate. I scooped Lily into my arms, throwing my weight forward, and sprinted through the slush toward the heavy industrial transformer box recessed into the brick wall. As Julian barked an order to his remaining guard, the dark alley erupted into muffled gunfire, ricochets screeching off old metal pipes like screaming ghosts.
***
