Chapter 10 - The Sledgehammer of Justice
The light from the helicopter was an absolute verdict. Ethan blinked against the glare, his arm wavering as the wind from the rotor blades threatened to knock him off his feet.
Vanessa realized the game was over before he did. With a sudden, vicious shriek, she lunged at me, the carving knife aimed directly at my throat. She didn't care about the police or the campaign anymore; she wanted to ensure that the woman who had unmade her world didn't survive to see the morning.
I didn't step back. I brought the iron crowbar down with a two-handed, swinging arc—a motion I had learned from lifting heavy crates of soil in my boutique's greenhouse.
Crack.
The solid iron bar hit Vanessa’s forearm with a sickening, splintering sound. The carving knife flew from her fingers, spinning across the gravel before disappearing over the edge of the roof into the dark void of the city below.
Vanessa fell to her knees, clutching her broken arm, her face twisted into a mask of pure, agonizing defeat. The white dress—the dress she had stolen from my closet—was now torn and covered in roof gravel, completely ruined.
Ethan looked at his mistress on the ground, then looked at the helicopter hovering twenty feet above his head. He slowly lowered the silver revolver, letting it drop from his limp fingers onto the gravel. He fell to his knees beside her, his hands flying above his head as four tactical officers slammed through the maintenance doors, pinning his shoulders to the wet concrete.
The lead detective walked over to me, draping a heavy, warm wool blanket over my shivering shoulders. "Mrs. Miller? Are you alright?"
May you like
I looked down at Ethan. He was looking up at me, his eyes full of a pathetic, silent plea for mercy—the same look he had used whenever he needed me to bail his campaign out of a financial hole.
"My name is Chloe Vance," I said, my voice clear and loud enough to be heard over the roar of the helicopter. "And I want to see the night manifest from the kitchen."
