Chapter 3 - Blood and SteelCarrying Grace through the labyrinthine service tunnels beneath the Vance estate felt like running through a nightmare. The air was thick with coal dust and the damp rot of old foundations. Every step echoed against the brick walls, and with every jolt, Grace let out a stifled cry of pain that tore at my heart.
“Julian, stop... I can’t... the baby’s moving down,” she gasped, her fingernails digging deep into my shoulders.
I checked my watch. We had maybe twenty minutes before my mother figured out how to override the manual deadlock on the dungeon door using the master security console in her study. If she caught us down here before we reached the perimeter fence, she wouldn't hesitate to use force.
We reached the base of the old brick stairwell that led up to the abandoned carriage house behind the main stables—a route my grandfather had built during the prohibition era to move contraband without drawing the eyes of local authorities.
I pushed open the heavy wooden trapdoor at the top of the stairs, flooding our eyes with the cold, gray light of a rainy New York evening. Mud squelched beneath my boots as I carried Grace out into the open courtyard behind the stables. The rain was pelting down in sheets, washing the blood and dirt from her face, but the freezing chill only made her shiver uncontrollably.
“We just need to reach the south gate,” I panted, scanning the sprawling perimeter.
Suddenly, the glaring headlights of two black Land Rovers cut through the rain, blocking the exit path toward the main road. The doors flew open, and four of my mother’s private security guards—men I had grown up knowing, men who had eaten at our family table—stepped out into the mud, wearing black tactical rain gear and holding heavy riot batons.
“Mr. Julian,” the lead guard, a scarred veteran named Miller, called out over the roar of the rain. “Mistress Vance gave explicit orders. No one leaves the estate tonight. Put Mrs. Vance down and step away.”
I didn't stop. I tightened my grip on Grace, sheltering her body against my chest with one arm, while my right hand slid inside my jacket to grip the heavy steel tactical flashlight I had brought from the cellar.
“Move, Miller,” I warned, my voice cutting through the storm like glass. “Or I swear to God, I will break every bone in your body before you can take another step.”
Miller hesitated, his eyes flickering between my furious, bloodshot gaze and the trembling, pregnant woman in my arms. He knew my reputation from the overseas syndicates; he knew what I was capable of when pushed to the edge. But loyalty to Eleanor’s paycheck outweighed his common sense.
“Take him down! Non-lethal!” Miller barked, drawing his baton and lunging forward through the mud.
The first guard rushed me from the left. I ducked beneath his wild swing, driving my elbow hard into his ribs with a sickening crack that sent him crashing face-first into the gravel. The second guard lunged with a taser, the crackling blue electrical prongs hissing inches from my ear. I twisted, grabbed his wrist, and twisted it backward until he screamed, hurling him into the side of the Land Rover.
Miller was on me next, his heavy boot catching me in the thigh, nearly buckling my knee. I stumbled, dropping to one knee in the mud, shielding Grace with my own body as her terrified scream pierced the night air.
“Julian! Look out!” Grace cried.
Miller raised his baton high to bring it down across my skull. But before the blow could land, a deafening roar echoed across the courtyard.
BANG.
A single gunshot shattered the night sky. Miller froze mid-swing, his eyes widening in shock as a plume of dirt exploded into the mud right beside his boot.
All movement stopped. The guards turned toward the main gates.
Through the pouring rain, a convoy of three matte-black unmarked SUVs smashed through the decorative iron security gates of the estate, their high-beams blinding everyone in the courtyard. The lead vehicle’s passenger door flew open before it even came to a complete stop, and out stepped Marcus Sterling—my personal corporate attorney and lifelong friend—holding a smoking Sig Sauer pistol barrel pointed safely toward the ground.
“Drop the batons, you sons of bitches!” Marcus roared, his voice echoing off the stone stables. Behind him, twelve federal marshals and local state troopers poured out of the SUVs, weapons drawn and locked on my mother’s security detail.
Miller dropped his baton instantly, raising his hands in surrender as two state troopers swarmed him.
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Marcus sprinted through the mud toward me, sliding to a halt in front of us. He took one look at Grace’s pale, sweat-soaked face and the dark blood staining her clothes, and his professional composure vanished.
“Holy mother of God,” Marcus breathed, shedding his expensive wool coat in a fraction of a second and draping it over Grace’s shivering shoulders. “Julian, get her into my car. Now. The federal medical helicopter is waiting at the county airstrip twenty minutes away.”
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