Chapter 50 - The Shattered Glass of Como
Sophia pulled the trigger.
The gunshot cracked like thunder inside the marble chamber. The 9mm round tore through David’s left shoulder, spinning him backward against the terminal table, sending paperwork and silver water carafes crashing to the floor. But the adrenaline of a cornered predator kept him upright. With a savage snarl, he grabbed the heavy bronze desk lamp and swung it horizontally, striking Sophia across the wrist and knocking the pistol clattering across the slick marble.
"Julian, now!" I cried, breaking away from the organ loft.
Julian and I burst through the private balcony doors above the ballroom, our footsteps pounding down the sweeping grand staircase. In my hands, I carried the unsealed, red-waxed parchment of the original 1898 Moreau charter, its gold ribbons trailing behind me.
"Security, kill them!" David screamed, his hand clutching his bleeding shoulder as he staggered backward toward the towering arched glass doors that led out onto the lakeside terrace. "They are impostors! Kill them all!"
None of the Guild guards moved. Count Rossi stood tall, his withered hand held up in a commanding gesture that froze the armed men in their tracks.
"Stand down," Rossi commanded in a voice of absolute iron. "The evidence speaks for itself. David Vance has violated the blood covenant, brought international authorities to our threshold, and murdered our sacred weavers. He is no longer protected by the Guild."
David looked around the grand hall, realizing in a terrifying heartbeat that he was completely, irrevocably abandoned. The very men he had served for thirty years were staring at him with cold, clinical disgust.
"You think you've won?" David spat, his blood dripping onto the pristine white marble. "You think you can take everything my father built?"
He spun around, drew a snub-nosed revolver from his inner tuxedo pocket, and fired two wild shots into the glass French doors, shattering the six-foot panes into a cascading shower of sparkling crystal.
David threw himself through the shattered frame, sprinting out onto the moonlit stone terrace that overlooked the dark waters of Lake Como sixty feet below.
"He's heading for the tender dock!" Julian shouted, drawing his weapon and vaulting over the marble balustrade into the ballroom.
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"Clara, stay back!" Sophia yelled, clutching her bruised wrist as she tried to intercept me.
I didn't stop. The fury that had simmered in my veins since the moment I walked into that church and saw another woman wearing my life’s work drove my feet forward. I leapt through the shattered glass of the terrace doors, the cold night wind whipping my hair into my eyes as I chased David Vance into the darkness.
