Chapter 96 - The Breaking Point
I turned slowly to look at Evelyn.
Her rifle was trembling. The cold, unshakeable marksman who had just eliminated two armed mercenaries looked suddenly hollowed out, her jaw slack, her eyes wide with an agony she couldn't conceal.
"Evelyn...?" I breathed. "Is that true?"
"It doesn't matter, Claire!" Evelyn screamed, her voice cracking in the enclosed space. "It doesn't change anything! Arthur was a monster who tried to buy immortality with our lives! He doesn't get to win!"
"It changes everything," Julian said calmly. "Because the biometric lock doesn't just read an iris pattern. It checks the telomere sequencing of Arthur’s pure lineage. And that means nobody—not me, not Evelyn, not all the lawyers in New York—can touch a single penny of the forty billion dollars without that little girl's consent."
Julian raised his left hand, snapping his fingers.
The two mercenaries on his right moved with terrifying speed. One threw a smoke canister at Evelyn’s feet, while the other charged forward, sweeping a collapsible baton toward her knee.
Evelyn fired, but the heavy white smoke bloomed instantly, obscuring her sightline. The sound of a violent struggle erupted in the confined space—punches landing on armor, a woman's choked gasp, and the clatter of the rifle skittering across the concrete floor.
"Lily, run!" I screamed, grabbing her hand and lunging toward the steel door of the vault.
I smashed my fist against the manual emergency override panel beside the optical scanner. An alarm began to wail—a deep, rhythmic klaxon that set the water at our feet vibrating. Red strobe lights bathed the concrete chamber in blood-red pulses.
*EMERGENCY LOCKDOWN INITIATED,* an automated voice chimed from hidden speakers. *BIOMETRIC OVERRIDE REQUIRED WITHIN SIXTY SECONDS, OR SUBTERRANEAN VENTILATION WILL TERMINATE.*
A heavy hand clamped onto my shoulder, spinning me around violently.
I collided with the hard chest plate of a mercenary. Before I could strike back, his armored forearm struck the side of my head. The concrete floor rushed up to meet me, stars exploding across my vision as my forehead slammed into the wet floor.
"Mommy!" Lily’s scream pierced through the ringing in my ears.
Through the red haze of the strobes, I saw Julian grab Lily by the arms, dragging her toward the optical scanner. Lily kicked and fought, biting down hard onto Julian’s gloved wrist. Julian cursed, backhanding the child across the cheek with enough force to send her small frame tumbling against the reinforced steel door.
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"Get up, you little rat," Julian snarled, his face twisted in rage as he pulled a small metallic stylus from his pocket. "Look into the lens, or I'll carve the eye out of your skull and scan it myself!"
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