Chapter 4 - The Corvette
I emerged from the cellar back into the cool night air just as the main generator snapped on, floodlights illuminating the driveway.
Madison was standing beside the dark-blue 1972 Corvette, furiously trying to jam a duplicate key into the ignition lock. The engine sputtered, groaned, but refused to turn over.
"Come on, you piece of junk!" Madison screamed, slamming her manicured hands against the leather steering wheel. "Start!"
I walked up behind the driver's side door, leaning against the cold fiberglass body of my father's car.
"You forgot to prime the carburetor, Madison," I said smoothly.
Madison froze.
She slowly turned her head. Her face went deathly pale, her mouth falling open as she looked at me standing there—covered in mud, wearing tactical gear, with a loaded pistol resting in my right hand.
"C-Claire...?" she whimpered, backing away across the leather seat until her back hit the passenger door. "You're... you're supposed to be in the ICU..."
"Dr. Whitmore was incompetent," I said, reaching through the open window, unlocking the door, and pulling it open. "And so are you."
"Get away from me!" Madison shrieked, reaching for her designer purse on the passenger seat. "Mom! Security! Help!"
I reached into the purse, pulled out her pearl-handled 22-caliber revolver, and casually tossed it into the bushes behind me.
"Mom's private security is currently unconscious near the garage," I informed her, grabbing Madison by her fur coat collar and hauling her out of the driver's seat onto the gravel driveway.
Madison hit the ground with a sharp squeal, her designer clothes getting covered in dirt.
"You're crazy!" she sobbed, scrambling backward on her hands and knees. "Mom said you were dying! She said everything was ours now!"
"Nothing here is yours, Madison," I said, stepping closer. "Not this car, not this house, and certainly not my father's legacy. You didn't even know his blood type, but you were ready to sell his life's work for designer handbags."
"He wasn't even my real father!" Madison spat out, her face contorting with sudden, ugly malice. "Mom told me! Marcus Vance is my father! Thomas Bennett was just a boring military stiff who paid for my school!"
Hearing those words spoken aloud on the land my father had slaved to protect hit me like a physical blow. But it didn't break me. It liberated me.
Every shred of hesitation, every lingering ounce of sisterly affection I might have held in the dark corners of my heart vanished into thin air.
"Thank you for confirming that, Madison," I said quietly.
I reached under the driver's seat frame, my fingers finding the small steel latch my father had welded into the chassis six years ago. A small brass key dropped into my palm.
I slid into the driver's seat of the 1972 Corvette.
I inserted the real brass key into the ignition. I pumped the gas pedal twice—priming the heavy V8 engine just like Dad had taught me on those rainy Saturday mornings—and turned the key.
ROAR!
The 454-cubic-inch engine erupted to life with a deafening, thunderous growl that shook the very ground beneath the car. The smell of rich gasoline and hot motor oil filled the air—the smell of my father's memory coming back to destroy his enemies.
Madison scrambled to her feet, staring at the roaring car in absolute terror.
I revved the engine, looking at her through the open window.
May you like
"Tell Vivian I'm coming to the airport," I yelled over the roar of the V8. "And tell her the General sends his regards."
I slammed the shifter into four-speed manual gear, dumped the clutch, and spun the wide rear tires, throwing a massive spray of gravel directly over Madison's fur coat as the Corvette shot down the driveway like a missile.
