Chapter 2 - The Fall of the Forty-Second FloorThe boiling liquid caught the assassin square across his eyes and nose.
He let out a muffled, agonizing shriek, his hands flying up to his face instinctively. The silenced pistol fired once—Pfft—the bullet tearing through the leather back of my executive chair, sending white stuffing bursting into the air.
I didn't hesitate. I lunged forward, slamming my shoulder into his ribs with the weight of a man fighting for his last breath.
We crashed into the hallway doorframe. The gun skittered across the polished marble floor, sliding toward the center of the room. The killer groaned, his burned face twisted in rage, and drove his elbow hard into my collarbone. Pain exploded across my chest, sending me stumbling backward onto the rug.
He recovered with terrifying speed. Blinking through the severe burns on his face, he reached toward his belt for a tactical blade.
"Mr. Whitmore!" a voice screamed.
From beneath the desk, Marcus didn't run away. The ten-year-old boy grabbed the heavy crystal water decanter from the side table and hurled it with both hands.
The three-pound glass vessel sailed through the air, catching the assassin right in the side of his knee. The impact snapped his joint with a sickening crack. He let out a choked yell, his leg buckling beneath him, sending him crashing heavily to his side onto the marble floor.
I scrambled forward, grabbing the discarded suppressed pistol from the rug. I racked the slide, brought it up, and pointed it straight between the killer's eyes.
"Move," I growled, my chest heaving, "and I'll put a hole through your skull."
The man lay on his back, his breath ragged, clutching his shattered knee, his burned face bleeding. He stared up at the barrel of the gun, then at me, and finally at the little boy standing bravely beside my desk, holding a heavy brass paperweight like a weapon.
"A kid..." the assassin wheezed, letting out a bitter, blood-flecked laugh. "I got taken down by a damn kid..."
Before I could demand a name, heavy, frantic footsteps echoed from the south stairwell door.
The door burst open, and Howard Brennan sprinted into the hallway, his service weapon drawn, three tactical security officers trailing right behind him.
"Edward!" Howard yelled, his face pale with sweat as he saw the scene in my office. "Hands up! Get down!"
"Lower your weapons, Howard," I commanded, my voice cold as iron, keeping my gun fixed on the man on the floor. "He's down. But you have three seconds to tell me why this man knew our private door signal before I assume you gave it to him."
Howard stopped dead in his tracks. He looked at the burned man on the floor, then at the silver watch on the assassin's wrist, and his jaw dropped in genuine horror.
"God in heaven... Edward, no," Howard stammered, pulling out his encrypted tablet with a shaking hand. "I didn't give him the signal. I couldn't reach you because the tower's interior comms were just jammed from the server room downstairs. I came as fast as I could!"
Howard turned the tablet screen toward me.
It showed a live security feed from the building's main basement control center. Lying bound and gagged on the concrete floor was my head of IT security—and standing over the main server console, uploading an emergency liquidation file to my company's international accounts, was my younger brother, Julian Whitmore.
My stomach dropped into a cold, bottomless pit.
"Julian," I whispered.
"He didn't just want you dead, Edward," Howard revealed, his voice filled with grim realization. "He's draining the entire corporate treasury into offshore accounts right now. If you die today, Julian inherits the remaining estate by default, and Whitmore Enterprises vanishes by midnight."
I lowered the gun slowly, my mind racing. Julian. My own blood. The brother I had raised, funded, and protected after our parents died.
I turned around to look at Marcus. The little boy was standing near my desk, his small shoulders trembling slightly now that the adrenaline was beginning to fade. He looked small, tired, and profoundly vulnerable.
I walked over to him, knelt on the floor so I was at eye level, and placed my hands gently on his shoulders.
"Marcus," I said softly, looking straight into his wide, dark eyes. "You saved my life twice today. Now I'm going to make sure nobody ever hurts you or your mother again."
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I stood up and looked at Howard.
"Lock this killer in the holding room. Call the Federal Bureau of Investigation," I ordered, my tone shifting into that of a commander going to war. "And then bring me my brother."
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