Chapter 75 - Fractured Bloodlines
The roar of rushing water began before the countdown even hit sixty.
Somewhere deep beneath the foundations of the Drowned Pulpit, pneumatic valves had blown wide open. Cold, black Atlantic seawater erupted from the floor drains, swirling around our ankles within seconds, rising with terrifying speed.
"Now!" Liam roared, throwing all of his weight into the crowbar.
With a sickening screech of sheared bolts and torn cables, the primary storage drive tore free from the terminal rack. Liam caught the heavy metal unit in his arms just as a torrent of freezing brine exploded through an upper ventilation duct, soaking us to the skin.
"Move!" I yelled, shoving Julian Harrow ahead of us into the main corridor.
The water was already knee-deep, pulling at our legs with the brutal suction of an undertow. Harrow stumbled, splashing wildly in blind panic, but Liam caught him by the scruff of his jacket, dragging him upward toward the iron ladder that led to the surface.
I climbed first, my soaked boots slipping against the rusted iron rungs. Above us, the storm had turned into a full-scale gale. As I pushed the heavy hatch open, rain lashed my face like needles.
I hauled myself onto the granite ledge, turning instantly to help Liam pull Harrow out. We barely had Harrow's torso through the opening when a muffled explosion shuddered deep within the rock beneath our boots. A violent geyser of sea spray and ruptured debris blasted out of the hatch, singing the air with sulfuric heat.
The chamber below had collapsed entirely into the ocean floor.
"Get to the boat!" Liam shouted over the howling gale, guiding Harrow's trembling frame down the slippery rocks toward our inflatable skiff.
We tumbled into the boat, Liam yanking the pull-cord on the outboard motor. The engine sputtered, caught, and roared to life. We slammed through the surging whitecaps, the Drowned Pulpit disappearing into the swirling gray mist behind us.
Harrow huddled on the bottom of the boat, shivering uncontrollably. But my hands were clutched tightly around the scuffed metal drive.
Two hours later, we were holed up in a secure, off-the-grid cabin twenty miles inland, nestled deep within the pine forests of Plymouth County. Liam had built a roaring fire in the stone hearth, the heat drying our clothes while he set up an isolated, air-gapped terminal to decrypt the drive.
My phone—a burner I had activated only that morning—vibrated violently on the wooden table.
I stared at the screen. The number was unlisted, but the regional code was unmistakable. Boston.
Liam looked up from his workstation, his gun resting beside the keyboard. He nodded grimly.
I answered the call, pressing the phone to my ear without speaking.
"Maya?"
The voice on the other end was fractured, trembling, completely stripped of the arrogant, condescending veneer that had defined her entire existence.
"Eleanor," I said, my voice as cold as the sea we had just escaped.
A ragged, choking sob came through the receiver. "Maya... they took Julian. They dragged him out of the apartment in front of me. And then... then a man came to my door. He left an envelope with your childhood handwriting on it."
My blood ran cold. "What did it say?"
"It says... it says Father is waiting at the Blackthorn Conservatory tonight. And if I don't bring you with me, they’re going to send Julian back to me in pieces." Eleanor began to hyperventilate, her voice rising to a frantic scream. "Maya, please! I know what I did to you! I know I destroyed your life, but please don't let them kill him!"
I closed my eyes, the weight of fifteen years of family betrayals pressing against my chest like a gravestone.
May you like
"Julian Vance was never your husband, Eleanor," I said, each word dripping with venomous clarity. "He was the noose they put around your neck. And you're still begging to hold the rope."
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