Chapter 6 - The Brother's Reckoning
The tension in the library was so thick it smelled of ozone. The four tactical men Julian had brought with him shifted their weight, their rifles pointed at Victor's chest, but none of them looked comfortable. They knew who Victor Vance was. They knew that a man who didn't reach for a gun when four rifles were aimed at his heart was either insane or had already decided how everyone in the room was going to die.
"You look old, Victor," Julian sneered, his grip tightening on his silencer-equipped revolver. "That fall off the boat gave me six years to think about how I was going to tear down everything our father left you."
"Father left me a mountain of debt and three corrupt judges, Julian," Victor said, taking a slow step toward his desk. "I built the rest. And you're standing on my carpet with dirty shoes."
"Shut up!" Julian barked, his calm cracking as his scarred face twitched with sudden rage. "Give me the primary ledger! The Swiss clearing codes! I know you kept them in the master safe!"
"The master safe was emptied two years ago, you idiot," Victor said smoothly. He stopped three feet from Scarlett's desk, placing his palm flat on the glass surface. He glanced sideways at Scarlett for a fraction of a second.
In that single glance, Scarlett saw a command.
Get down.
Scarlett didn't hesitate. She grabbed Eleanor by the wrist and yanked the older woman down behind the heavy wooden desk just as the lights in the library went completely black.
A deafening siren erupted through the ceiling speakers—a high-frequency acoustic burst designed to disorient attackers.
Gunfire flared in the dark—short, sharp bursts of muzzle flash lighting up the library like a strobe light. Glass shattered. Heavy bodies hit the slate floor with wet thuds.
Scarlett pressed her back against the inner frame of the desk, shielding Eleanor with her body as wood splinters rained down on them. Through the chaotic flashes of light, she saw Victor moving not like a fifty-year-old businessman, but like a phantom.
He didn't draw a gun; he seized the barrel of the nearest guard's rifle, twisted it upward, drove his elbow into the man's throat, and stripped the sidearm from his holster before the guard hit the floor.
Three shots echoed in rapid succession—pop, pop, pop.
Silence returned as suddenly as the chaos had begun, broken only by the wail of the security siren and the harsh, ragged gasps of a man dying on the rug.
The emergency red lights clicked on, casting a crimson glow over the room.
Two guards lay motionless near the shattered glass doors. The other two were unconscious near the leather sofa.
In the center of the room, Julian was on his knees, clutching his leg where a single bullet had shattered his knee joint. His revolver lay three feet away on the rug, useless.
Victor stood over him, holding the heavy black sidearm he had taken from the guard. His hair was slightly disheveled, a line of dark blood running down his left cheek where a glass shard had cut him, but his breathing was steady.
"Six years, Julian," Victor said softly, looking down at his brother. "You had six years in hiding. You could have taken your money and lived in Argentina. You could have built a life."
"I wanted... what was mine..." Julian gasped, tears of pain cutting through the grime on his scarred face.
"Nothing was yours," Victor said. He raised the weapon, pointing it directly between Julian's eyes.
May you like
Scarlett stepped out from behind the desk.
"Victor!" she shouted.
