Chapter 12 - The House With No Safe Exit.
The first gunshot shattered the living-room window.
Marcus pushed Maya to the floor.
Hale drew his weapon.
Marianne screamed.
Ethan overturned the dining table and pulled it toward the window.
“Back hallway!”
Marcus grabbed Marianne.
Maya crawled beside him.
Another shot struck the wall.
Plaster exploded above them.
Grace was not with Maya.
For once that was a blessing.
She was safe.
At least Maya prayed she was.
Hale called for tactical units.
The attackers had jammed mobile signals.
His radio barely worked.
Ethan pointed toward the basement.
“There’s a storm exit.”
Marianne shook her head.
“Locked from outside.”
Maya looked toward the kitchen.
“Garage?”
“Detached.”
Marcus studied the dark hallway.
“We need time.”
Ethan grabbed a lamp.
“I can draw them toward the east side.”
Maya seized his arm.
“You’ll get shot.”
Ethan looked at her.
“For once, let me do something that isn’t about protecting myself.”
Maya stared at him.
Then released his arm.
Ethan crawled toward the back room.
He threw the lamp through a window.
Glass shattered.
One attacker fired toward the sound.
Hale returned fire.
Marcus moved Maya and Marianne into the basement.
They found an old coal chute wide enough to crawl through.
Marianne exited first.
Maya followed.
Marcus came last.
They emerged behind a hedge.
Police sirens became audible in the distance.
Then a man stepped from the darkness.
Daniel Cross.
He held a pistol.
Maya stopped.
Cross smiled grimly.
“I was hoping Victoria was wrong about you.”
Marcus moved in front of Maya.
“Put it down.”
Cross shook his head.
“You have no idea what’s inside that ledger.”
Marcus stared at him.
“I know enough.”
“No.”
Cross’s expression became desperate.
“You think this is about the Sterlings?”
“It isn’t.”
“The people in that book include judges.”
“Governors.”
“Defense officials.”
“Foreign investors.”
“People who will burn every person in this house before they let those pages become public.”
Maya stepped beside Marcus.
“Then why are you helping them?”
Cross laughed bitterly.
“Because my father was in the ledger.”
“What did he do?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters to you.”
Cross’s jaw tightened.
“My father took money.”
“He signed procurement approvals.”
“I spent my entire career becoming everything he wasn’t.”
“Then Victoria showed me the file.”
Marcus understood.
“She blackmailed you.”
“For twelve years.”
Cross’s eyes filled with shame.
“Every contract.”
“Every legal opinion.”
“Every lie.”
Maya looked at him.
“You tried to kill us in the hospital.”
“I shut the vault.”
“You released the gas.”
“It was supposed to make you unconscious.”
Marcus scoffed.
“How comforting.”
Police sirens drew closer.
Cross looked toward the road.
His hand began shaking.
Maya stepped forward.
“Daniel.”
Marcus whispered.
“Don’t.”
Maya ignored him.
“You can still decide what happens next.”
Cross stared at her.
“That is something people say when they’ve never been trapped.”
Maya shook her head.
“I grew up believing nobody wanted me because powerful people decided my life was inconvenient.”
“I know what being trapped feels like.”
Cross’s pistol lowered slightly.
Maya continued.
“Victoria owns you because you keep protecting the thing she uses against you.”
“Stop.”
Cross breathed heavily.
“If I testify, I go to prison.”
“Maybe.”
“My family will know.”
“Yes.”
“My career is over.”
“Yes.”
Cross almost laughed.
“You’re not very good at persuasion.”
“I’m not trying to save your career.”
Maya looked directly into his eyes.
“I’m telling you that living honestly with consequences is still better than living as someone else’s weapon.”
Cross’s arm dropped.
The gun fell into the grass.
Hale emerged from the house seconds later and arrested him.
The attackers fled before tactical officers arrived.
One vehicle was captured nearby.
Inside police found photographs.
Maya.
Marcus.
Marianne.
Ethan.
Grace.
Maya stared at the picture of her daughter.
Something cold settled inside her.
This could not continue.
Victoria was no longer merely protecting the past.
She was threatening the future.
Cross sat handcuffed in a police vehicle.
Before officers drove him away, he asked to speak with Maya.
She approached.
He leaned toward the window.
“Victoria isn’t running.”
Maya frowned.
“She’s with Rowan.”
Cross shook his head.
“That’s what she wants everyone to think.”
“What do you mean?”
“Rowan didn’t take her.”
Maya stared.
“The airport video.”
“Staged.”
“Why?”
Cross looked toward Marcus.
“To make investigators chase a dead end while she retrieves the Crown Ledger.”
“Where is Rowan?”
Cross’s expression darkened.
“I don’t know.”
“But I know Victoria’s next move.”
Maya waited.
“She will go after the merger.”
Ethan approached.
“It’s suspended.”
Cross laughed.
“Exactly.”
He looked at Ethan.
“If Sterling-Vaughn collapses, Victoria loses control of the board.”
“So?”
“So tomorrow morning she plans to force the merger through using emergency voting authority.”
Ethan’s face changed.
“She can’t.”
“She can if you’re declared legally incapacitated.”
Ethan stared.
Cross continued.
“And Victoria already filed the petition.”
Maya looked at her husband.
“What grounds?”
Cross’s answer came quietly.
“Psychiatric instability.”
Ethan went pale.
“And who signed the medical evaluation?”
Cross looked toward the hospital in the distance.
“Dr. Henry Lawson.”
Maya understood.
Victoria Sterling was willing to destroy her own son to preserve the empire.
For the first time Ethan understood what Maya had learned long ago.
May you like
In Victoria’s world, family was never the most important thing.
Control was.
