Chapter 7 - The Unbroken Line
Victor didn't lower the gun. His finger tightened on the trigger, his dark eyes fixed on his brother's forehead with absolute, lethal intent.
"Don't do it," Scarlett said, taking two steps toward him across the ruined floorboards. "If you kill him in front of me, you're no different than the people who tried to burn your warehouses."
"He came into my house to slaughter my people, Scarlett," Victor said, his voice flat, devoid of humanity. "This is how this world works. It's the only language he understands."
"No," Scarlett said, stepping between the barrel of the gun and Julian's face.
Eleanor screamed from behind the desk. "Scarlett, get back!"
Scarlett didn't move. She stood four inches from the hot barrel of the weapon, looking Victor dead in the eye—the exact same way she had looked at him at table six in the diner thirty-six hours ago.
"You paid me eight thousand dollars a month to manage this house," Scarlett said, her voice dropping into a quiet, unbreakable rhythm. "You told me you hired me because I have a brain and I don't scare easily. If you execute your brother on your library rug, you're not a manager—you're just a monster in an expensive suit. And I don't work for monsters."
Victor stared at her. The crimson emergency light reflected in the dark irises of his eyes, making him look like something carved out of volcanic glass.
"Get out of the way, Miss Monroe," he whispered.
"No," she said. "If you want to pull that trigger, you have to shoot through me first. And you won't do that, Victor. Because if you kill me, who's going to tell you your coffee is cold?"
Silence stretched between them—long, agonizing seconds where the entire fate of the Vance empire hung on a thread finer than silk.
Slowly—imperceptibly at first—the tension in Victor's shoulder began to unlock. His finger slid off the trigger. He lowered the heavy black weapon to his side.
He looked down at Julian, who was trembling on the floor, bleeding onto the Persian rug.
"Frank," Victor called out into the hallway.
Frank stepped through the ruined doorway, holding a tactical shotgun, two fresh security guards at his back.
"Take my brother to the cellar," Victor commanded, his voice cold and dry as ice. "Call Dr. Vance's private surgeon to fix his knee. Then put him on a cargo flight to a compound in northern Iceland. If he ever sets foot on North American soil again, kill him."
Frank nodded once, grabbing Julian by his velvet collar and dragging him down the hall.
Victor stood alone in the center of the room, looking at the blood on his hands and the shattered glass covering his desk. He turned his dark eyes back to Scarlett.
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"You're fired," he said softly.
"No, I'm not," Scarlett said, stepping past him to pull a clean handkerchief from his desk drawer. She reached up and gently pressed it against the cut on his cheek. "You need me too much."
