Chapter 7 - THE PORCELAIN SUGAR BOWL
My blood turned to ice at the sound of Cassandra's voice.
Roman pressed a finger to his lips, his dark eyes fierce despite the agonizing burn on his shoulder. He shifted the heavy chrome revolver into his left hand and started up the narrow carpeted stairs, stepping along the outer edges where the old pine boards wouldn't creak.
I followed right behind him, gripping the iron tire wrench so hard my palms ached.
Through the half-open doorway of the master bedroom, the pale glow of the streetlamp outside illuminated my father sitting propped up against his pillows. He looked frail in his faded blue flannel pajamas, his thin gray hair rumpled.
Standing over his bed was Cassandra Vane. She had thrown a dark wool trench coat over her torn green engagement dress, and her once-flawless blonde hair hung in tangled clumps around her face. In her left hand, she held the orange prescription bottle of blue capsules. In her right, she held a small silver pistol pointed directly at my father's chest.
And standing by the bedroom window, keeping watch on the street below, was the driver from the blue sedan—a thick-necked man in a leather jacket holding a heavy hunting knife.
"I'm not taking four of those," my father said stubbornly, though his voice trembled. "Elena told me the doctor said two. You're not a nurse."
"Your daughter is probably dead in a cellar fire by now," Cassandra hissed, grabbing a glass of water from the nightstand and shoving it toward his face. "Marcus left me behind in those woods like a stray dog because of her! If I don't bring him the deed to the Fourth Street corner before I cross the state line, I have nothing left!"
My heart skipped a beat. The deed to the Fourth Street corner?
Why would Marcus and Cassandra care about my bankrupt thirty-seat bakery on Fourth Street?
"Dad, don't touch that glass!" I shouted, stepping into the doorway as Roman kicked the bedroom door wide open.
The thick-necked driver spun around from the window, raising his knife, but Roman didn't hesitate. Even with his left hand, Roman's aim was deadly. He didn't shoot to kill—he fired a single deafening round that shattered the brass lamp beside the driver's head and lunged forward, slamming his good shoulder into the man's chest and driving him straight through the hallway banister.
Wood splintered as both men crashed down onto the staircase landing in a brutal tangle of fists and limbs.
In the bedroom, Cassandra shrieked and swung the small silver pistol away from my father, pointing it straight at my face.
"Don't move!" she screamed, her finger tightening on the trigger, her eyes wild and unhinged. "I swear I'll shoot you, Elena! I have nothing left to lose!"
"Why does Marcus want my bakery, Cassandra?" I asked, keeping my body positioned squarely between her gun and my father's bed. "It's worth less than the ring on your finger!"
"Because the city council is voting next Tuesday on the new riverfront casino transit hub!" Cassandra spat, tears of rage streaking her smeared makeup. "The main subway terminal goes right through the Fourth Street block! That worthless little corner lot you refused to sell for three years is worth十四 million dollars in eminent domain buyouts! Marcus spent a year bankrupting every shop on that block so Vane Development could buy the whole parcel for pennies, and your stubborn old father wouldn't sign the release!"
The truth hit me like a physical blow. The sudden health inspections that had shut my ovens down for a month. The delivery trucks that mysteriously stopped supplying my flour. My father's sudden heart failure right when the bank demanded the balloon payment.
It hadn't been the economy. It had been the Vane family carving up my life for a real estate payout—and when Roman stepped in and bought my mortgage note to protect me, he had unknowingly blocked Marcus's fourteen-million-dollar payday from the inside.
Down on the stairs, the heavy thud of bone hitting wood echoed as Roman knocked the driver unconscious against the wall.
Cassandra heard Roman's heavy boots coming back up the steps. Panic overtook her face. She turned the gun back toward my father.
"Sign the release on the nightstand, old man, or I shoot her right now!" Cassandra screamed.
My father looked at the gun, then looked past Cassandra at me. For forty years, my dad had worked the steel mills in this city before helping me build my kitchen tables by hand.
"Elena," my dad said calmly. "Duck."
Before Cassandra could blink, my father reached over to the nightstand, grabbed the heavy porcelain sugar bowl my late mother had painted—the one he kept his loose change and steel washers inside—and smashed it with all his strength across Cassandra's wrist.
Porcelain and silver quarters exploded across the room. The small pistol flew out of Cassandra's bruised hand and skittered under the dresser.
Cassandra lunged to grab the gun, but I stepped forward and brought the flat side of my arm down across her shoulders, pinning her face-first onto the braided rug just as Roman limped into the bedroom with his revolver raised.
"Get off me!" Cassandra sobbed into the rug, kicking wildly in her ruined designer heels. "Do you know who my family is?!"
"I know exactly who you are," I panted, pulling the belt from my father's bathrobe and tying her hands tightly behind her back while Roman held the gun on her.
I stood up, my chest heaving, and picked up the spilled blue capsules from the floor.
"Dad," I choked out, throwing my arms around my father's neck and burying my face in his flannel shoulder. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, sweetheart," he rasped, patting my back with a trembling hand. "Though I think your boss owes me a new banister."
Roman leaned against the doorframe, pale and sweating from the torn skin on his shoulder, yet a faint, genuine smile touched his lips.
Then the police sirens began wailing down Fourth Street. And in Cassandra's coat pocket, a prepaid burner phone began to vibrate.
May you like
Roman reached down, pulled the phone from her coat, and flipped it open. A text message glowed on the screen from an unknown number:
I'm at the coastal vineyard with the boy's wooden horse. Tell Roman if he wants the real reason his brother was kept alive for three years, he meets me at the cliff before sunrise. Alone. — M.V.
