Chapter 29 - The Price of Blood
Julianna held up the electronic detonator. Her thumb rested directly on the glowing green toggle.
"You have a choice, Jonathan. A very simple, poetic choice."
She pointed toward the glass cage. Lily was weeping silently now, exhausted, her small chest heaving as the wind rocked the transparent box violently above the pit of glass.
"That hoist cable is rigged with a thermal cut-charge," Julianna explained calmly. "In sixty seconds, the charge ignites, melts the steel cable, and your precious little girl plummets into the glass pit. The only way to stop the charge is to enter the manual override code on the primary console down on the main floor."
Jonathan shifted his weight, his eyes darting toward the ladder. "And the override code?"
"The override code," Julianna continued, tapping the screen of her phone, "is the access pin to the Sterling family trust fund. The one you stole from Victoria. Transfer the assets back to my private account, and the override code unlocks the hoist."
"I’ll do it!" Jonathan shouted without hesitation. "Give me the device! I’ll authorize the transfer right now!"
"There's just one catch," Julianna whispered, her eyes narrowing into cold slits of triumph. "The moment you begin the transfer down there, the charges on your cellar vault detonate. Martha Jenkins dies in fire and concrete."
Jonathan felt the ground drop out from beneath him.
"One child for one old woman," Julianna said, stepping toward the edge of the platform. "The daughter you used as a pawn, or the faithful hound who lied under oath to put my sister in chains. Choose, Jonathan. You have forty seconds."
Down in the glass cage, Lily managed to tear the cloth from her mouth with her teeth.
"Daddy!" she screamed, her tiny voice piercing through the wind and thunder. "Daddy, don't let me fall! Please! Don't let me fall!"
Jonathan’s heart was being torn in two. If he ran for the console to save Lily, Martha would be blown to pieces in the mansion vault. If he stayed up here to fight Julianna, the hoist cable would melt before he could disarm it, and Lily would plunge to her death.
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His mind raced through the layout of the catwalk. The distance between the gantry and the hoist. The angle of the overhead support beam.
"Thirty seconds," Julianna warned, a cruel, mocking smile spreading across her lips as she counted down. "Tick tock, Jonathan."
