Chapter 10 - The Crossfire
The sharp, metallic click of the guard’s pistol cocking echoed ominously over the whine of the jet turbines. Marcus didn't flinch. He didn't even turn around. His dark eyes remained locked on Eleanor, whose triumphant smile widened as the armed operative stepped closer, pressing the barrel of the gun toward the back of Marcus’s skull.
"Drop it, Sterling! Hands where I can see them!" the guard barked, his voice tense with adrenaline.
Eleanor exhaled a sharp, shuddering breath of relief, her hand sliding back out of her coat pocket—holding not a weapon, but a small, heavy silver remote control with a blinking red LED.
"You should have stayed in the boardroom, Marcus," Eleanor purred, her voice dripping with venomous satisfaction. "The explosives wired beneath the foundation's downtown archives are set on a dead-man's switch. If I don't punch the override code into this remote within the next three minutes, every paper, every hard drive, and every trace of the Sterling family’s corporate history goes up in smoke—along with the hospital records linking Clara to your estate."
Inside the car parked fifty yards away in the treeline, Clara watched the scene unfold through the binoculars with mounting horror. She lowered the lenses, her mind racing at lightning speed. The archives downtown contained the original deeds to the estate, documents that proved Marcus’s grandfather had legally acquired the land decades ago—deeds that Eleanor had forged months prior to claim sole ownership.
"She’s bluffing," Sarah said from the backseat, her eyes wide with terror. "She wouldn't destroy her own family's assets!"
"She would," Clara said grimly, opening the passenger door. "Because if the archives burn, the debt liabilities go up in smoke too. She’s cashing out her insurance payout."
Before Sarah could grab her arm, Clara slipped out of the car and bolted across the wet grass toward the airfield gate. Her bare feet splashed through the puddles, the cold wind whipping her hospital gown around her legs. Every step sent a sharp, agonizing cramp through her lower abdomen, but she ignored the pain, driving herself forward with sheer, desperate willpower.
Back on the tarmac, the guard holding the gun to Marcus’s head suddenly froze as a blinding set of high beams flashed across the runway. A battered grey sedan tore through the shattered perimeter gate, drifting sideways across the wet concrete before slamming to a halt right at the foot of the boarding stairs.
Sarah leaned out of the driver's window, pointing a heavy metal wrench she had found in the glove box straight at the guard, screaming at the top of her lungs, "Drop the gun or I run you down!"
The guard hesitated, his attention momentarily split between Marcus and the oncoming car. That split second was all Marcus needed. With lightning-fast reflexes, Marcus spun around, grabbed the barrel of the guard’s gun, and twisted it violently downward, firing a round into the concrete before driving his fist square into the guard’s jaw. The man crumpled to the tarmac like a sack of wet cement.
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Eleanor shrieked in terror, her thumb slamming down hard on the red button of the remote control. A distant, rumbling explosion echoed from the direction of the city skyline as a plume of fire lit up the horizon.
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