Chapter 59 - Blood and Saltwater
Valerie lunged forward, her crimson fingernails aimed straight for my eyes in an act of feral desperation.
I didn't step back.
With seven years of bottled fury driving my arm, I caught her wrist in an iron grip, twisting her downward until she gasped in agony, her knees slamming onto the hard marble floor. Julian stood at the door, his arms crossed, ensuring no one would interfere.
"You wanted to mark me, Valerie," I whispered, bending down until my lips were inches from her ear. "You wanted the world to see me covered in filth so they would forget whose name was on the building."
I tipped the glass bottle over her head.
The thick, oily brown foundation poured down Valerie's perfectly styled platinum hair, oozing over her forehead, ruining her false eyelashes, and dripping onto the thousand-dollar white cashmere sweater she was wearing.
She shrieked—a high, piercing sound of pure, unadulterated vanity being crushed underfoot. She clawed at her face, smearing the brown sludge across her cheeks, blinding herself in a pathetic, flailing frenzy.
"It doesn't wash off easily, does it?" I said, tossing the empty glass bottle onto the floor beside her. It shattered with a sharp *crack*. "Take a good look at yourself. That is how the press will photograph you when Julian walks you out to the police cruisers."
Suddenly, the French doors overlooking the ocean shattered inward.
A mercenary in wet diving gear burst through the glass, raising a submachine gun aimed directly at my back.
"Serena, down!" Julian roared.
Julian tackled me to the floor, shielding my body with his own as a burst of suppressed automatic fire chewed through the grand piano, sending wooden splinters and severed piano wire screaming through the air.
Marcus Montgomery appeared at the shattered threshold. With a calm, terrifying precision, Marcus raised his silver-headed cane—which concealed a custom high-caliber firearm—and fired a single shot.
The diver collapsed backward through the broken glass, tumbling into the raging black waves sixty feet below the terrace.
Julian pulled me up, his hands checking my shoulders, my face, his eyes dilated with adrenaline. "Are you hit? Serena, talk to me!"
"I'm fine," I gasped, my heart hammering against my ribs, looking down at Julian's arm where a jagged shard of glass had sliced through his dark wool coat, staining the sleeve with crimson. "Julian... you're bleeding."
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"It's nothing," he said, his jaw locked tight, pulling me securely against his chest for one brief, breathless moment before stepping between me and the storm. "We need to clear this cliff. Vance sent a recovery team by sea."
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