Chapter 47 - The Lioness at the Threshold
A deafening hiss tore through the cellar.
From twenty concealed ceiling nozzles, thick white clouds of compressed halon gas blasted into the room with blinding speed. The air was violently sucked out of the space.
The two mercenaries dropped their rifles instantly, clutching their throats and gasping frantically for oxygen that wasn't there. Panicking, they turned and bolted back toward the cliffside elevator shaft, desperate for ocean air, abandoning Julian in the fog of chemical suppression.
Julian lunged forward, coughing violently, his pistol firing blindly into the mist. The bullet ricocheted loudly off a stone pillar, sparking inches from my face.
I had already anticipated the rush. Dropping low beneath the expanding cloud of gas where residual air lingered near the floor, I lunged sideways, using the massive oak casks as cover.
Julian stumbled through the white vapor, wheezing, his eyes burning red. "Lauren! You bitch! I will tear this house down stone by stone!"
He rounded the corner of the cask row, weapon raised.
I didn't hesitate.
I stepped out from behind the pillar and swung Margaret’s heavy ivory-handled revolver with all the force of a mother defending her young. The steel frame cracked hard against Julian’s wrist.
His pistol flew from his grasp, clattering across the wet stone floor into the dark drain.
Julian roared in pain, lunging with his bare hands, his fingers clawing for my throat. He was larger, heavier, driven by blind, psychotic desperation. His hands slammed into my shoulders, driving me back against the stone wall. The air was knocked from my lungs, stars exploding across my vision.
"You took everything from me!" he shrieked, his thumbs pressing into my windpipe. "Everything was supposed to be mine!"
I couldn't breathe. The edges of my vision blurred into black.
Through the haze of suffocation, I saw Margaret’s face in my mind. I saw the feverish faces of my six-month-old twins on that Christmas Eve a year ago, shivering in the freezing cold while Julian sipped champagne with Sierra.
*Not tonight.*
*Never again.*
With a surge of primal strength, I brought my right knee up violently into Julian’s groin.
Julian gasped, his grip loosening as his body convulsed in agony. As he doubled over, I brought the butt of Margaret’s revolver down across his temple with devastating, decisive force.
Julian collapsed onto the cold flagstones, groaning, blood trickling from his hairline.
I stepped back, gasping for air, the halon gas beginning to vent through the automated exhaust shafts Clara had opened above. I leveled the ivory-handled revolver directly between Julian Vance’s eyes.
My hands did not shake.
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"You never understood Margaret," I panted, looking down at the broken man at my feet. "Margaret didn't build an empire of money, Julian. She built an empire of blood, sacrifice, and honor. Things you could never buy."
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