Chapter 8 - The Detonator
The tunnel went deathly quiet.
Julian stared at the silver-haired woman in the wheelchair, his gun still raised, but his confidence fracturing.
“Elena,” Julian sneered. “You brought a bomb into Grand Central? You’re bluffing.”
“It is not a physical explosive, Julian,” Elena said, her voice steady and echoing with absolute authority. “It is a digital one.”
She held up the detonator. A small red light blinked furiously.
“The SD card Marco hid was uploaded to a secure dead-man server an hour ago,” Elena explained coldly. “The ledger detailing your embezzlement, the offshore accounts, the bribes to the medical examiners who falsified my husband’s autopsy... all of it is primed. If my thumb slips off this trigger, the server broadcasts every file to the FBI, the SEC, and Interpol simultaneously. Your empire burns to ash in ten seconds.”
Julian’s face went completely pale. “You wouldn’t. The files contain Volkov secrets too! You’ll ruin your own son!”
“I built my son to survive the fire,” Elena said, looking proudly at Damian. “You built your family to hide in the smoke.”
Julian’s eyes darted around like a cornered animal. He looked at the mercenaries behind him. “Kill her. Shoot her now!”
The mercenaries hesitated, staring at the detonator.
“Do it!” Julian roared.
Damian didn't wait. He moved with a speed that defied logic. He fired two suppressed shots, hitting both mercenaries in their dominant shoulders before they could even raise their rifles. The men collapsed to the concrete, groaning in pain.
Julian panicked. He swung his gun toward Elena.
I didn't think. I lunged forward, grabbing a heavy metal pipe from a nearby maintenance cart, and swung it with everything I had.
The pipe connected with Julian’s wrist with a sickening crack.
Julian screamed, dropping the gun.
Damian was on him in a second, tackling the socialite’s brother to the floor, pinning him with a knee to the chest and a gun pressed directly between his eyes.
“Give me one reason not to blow your head off,” Damian snarled, a decade of grief and rage boiling over.
“Damian, enough.” Elena’s voice was sharp. “He will rot in a federal cell. That is worse than death for a Vale.”
The heavy steel doors at the end of the tunnel burst open. Sirens wailed as a tactical team of FBI agents—contacted by Damian’s clean lawyers thirty minutes ago—swarmed the tunnel, weapons drawn.
They hauled a bleeding, screaming Julian to his feet and slapped cuffs on him.
I didn't care about Julian. I dropped the pipe and ran to the medical stretcher.
“Mom!” I cried, falling to my knees beside her.
Marco was already there, holding her hand, sobbing. Her chest was rising and falling steadily. She was deeply sedated, but she was alive.
I looked up at Damian. He lowered his weapon, his chest heaving, the billionaire armor completely gone. He walked over to me, extending a hand.
I took it, and he pulled me to my feet.
“She’s safe,” Damian whispered, pulling me into a fierce, unexpected embrace. He smelled like gunpowder and expensive cologne.
“It’s over,” I breathed against his chest.
But as Julian was dragged past us by the FBI agents, he let out a harsh, barking laugh.
“You think it’s over?” Julian spat, blood dripping from his mouth. “I didn’t bring your mother here, Maya.”
I froze, pulling away from Damian. “What?”
“The woman on the stretcher was heavily sedated when my men grabbed her,” Julian sneered maliciously. “I just needed leverage. I didn't care who it was.”
I spun around, ripping the oxygen mask off the woman on the stretcher.
My heart stopped.
It wasn't my mother. It was another elderly patient from the same cardiac ward. Julian’s men had grabbed the wrong woman in the dark.
My mother was still missing.
I backed away in sheer terror. If Julian didn't have her... who did?
Marco grabbed my arm. “Maya! Look at the back of the drawing!”
He held up the old crayon drawing of the train he had left on the hospital bed.
I flipped it over.
May you like
Written in messy, hurried handwriting on the back of the paper were GPS coordinates.
And a single note: I couldn't let him take her. Trust the driver.
