Chapter 173 - The Hostage on the Terrace
The world tilted on its axis.
The cold blood in my veins turned to liquid fire.
"Sophie!" I gasped, my weapon wavering for a fraction of a second.
Victor Sterling lunged.
He didn't reach for a gun on his desk; he slammed his palm down onto a red mechanical button concealed beneath the walnut molding.
CLANG.
A heavy, one-inch-thick steel security shutter dropped from the ceiling frame, slamming down between the desk and the French doors, separating Ethan and me from Victor’s terminal in a concussive crash of reinforced armor.
"The stealth boat!" Ethan roared, grabbing my arm, dragging me backward through the French doors into the rain. "They hit the boat!"
We sprinted through the terraced gardens, bounding down the stone staircases four steps at a time, our boots slipping on the wet limestone.
We burst through the boathouse archway.
Our carbon-fiber stealth interceptor was listing thirty degrees to port, its hull breached by an underwater limpet charge.
Standing on the floating wooden dock, surrounded by six heavily armed mercenaries in gray tactical wet-gear, was Lady Seraphina Sterling—Dominic’s sister, who had somehow escaped the federal net in Monaco.
She wore an armored tactical jacket over black trousers, her platinum hair soaked with rain, holding a small, silver-plated automatic pistol.
And kneeling on the wet wooden planks before her were Noah and Sophie.
Sophie was weeping, her face pale, clutching Barnaby against her ribs.
Noah was pinned to his knees by a massive mercenary’s boot pressed against the small of his back, his wire-rimmed glasses knocked crooked on his nose, blood dripping from a small cut on his temple.
Beside them, Captain Dupont and Dr. Moreau lay face-down on the dock, bound with heavy plastic flex-cuffs.
"Stop right there, Ethan!" Seraphina shouted over the roar of the rain, stepping behind Sophie, pressing the barrel of her pistol directly against my daughter's temple. "Drop your weapons into the lake! Both of you! Right now!"
Ethan stopped on the stone steps ten yards away.
His face was completely drained of color. His hands trembled on his carbine, his gray eyes fixing upon the silver barrel resting against our little girl’s trembling head.
"Let her go, Seraphina," Ethan said, his voice dropping into a desperate, agonizing rasp that broke my heart into a thousand pieces. "Take me. Take the server codes. Just let the children go."
"The children are the only leverage that keeps your sniper friends from blowing my head off, Vance!" Seraphina shrieked, her eyes wild with narcissistic madness. "Drop the guns! On your knees! Both of you!"
I looked at Noah.
Through his crooked glasses, my ten-year-old son caught my eye.
He didn't look terrified. His small, brilliant face held an expression of intense, mathematical calculation.
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His right hand was slightly tucked beneath his knee.
And between his small fingers, he was holding the remote flight antenna of his miniature autonomous drone.
