Chapter 47 - The Nanny’s Razor
The spiral maintenance stairs leading to the roof were steep, narrow, and slick with moisture running down from the open hatch above.
Every step was agony. The sound of Leo’s shallow, raspy breathing echoed in Lily’s ears louder than the thunder rolling across the estate. She could feel the child’s body temperature dropping, his small chest heaving in rapid, desperate spasms.
"Stay behind me," Victor commanded, taking the stairs two at a time, his submachine gun held high against his cheek.
They hit the roof landing. The storm hit them instantly—a violent wall of wind and driving rain that whipped Lily’s soaked hair across her face.
Fifty yards away, sitting on the reinforced concrete helipad, the Sikorsky S-76 helicopter spun its massive rotors, the wash kicking up a blinding vortex of mist and spray. Eleanor Blackwood was already at the passenger door, flanked by her final two personal bodyguards, holding a silver medical refrigeration case against her chest.
One of the bodyguards turned, his tactical light sweeping the stairwell exit.
"Hostile at the hatch!" the man screamed, bringing his assault rifle to bear.
Victor stepped out into the open, completely disregarding his own cover, and opened fire. The suppressed MPX chattered, three rounds punching through the guard’s chest plates before the man could squeeze the trigger. The guard flipped backward off the helipad ramp, his rifle sliding across the wet concrete.
The second bodyguard dove behind the helicopter's landing skid, returning fire with controlled bursts. Rounds sparked off the steel doorframe inches from Lily’s face, forcing Victor to drop behind a heavy HVAC ventilation unit for cover.
"Victor! The helicopter is spooling up!" Lily shouted over the deafening scream of the turbine engines. The aircraft’s skids were already lightening, the pilot preparing for immediate liftoff.
Eleanor was stepping into the cabin, looking back at them with a cold, triumphant smile, the silver case locked securely in her hand.
"Victor, we're out of time!" Lily screamed, tears mixing with the rain on her cheeks as Leo’s breathing grew impossibly faint. "He’s stopping! He’s stopping breathing!"
Victor looked at his weapon. Empty. The bolt was locked back on an empty chamber. He reached for his sidearm—slide locked, no more magazines on his belt. He was completely dry.
The remaining bodyguard was advancing on their position, using the deafening noise of the rotors to flank the HVAC unit, his assault weapon aimed squarely at the corner where Victor and Lily were pinned.
In that fraction of a second, Lily Adler stopped being the terrified nanny.
She set the gasping baby gently onto the dry, sheltered space beneath the ventilation duct, stepped out from behind the steel housing, and didn't pull a gun.
She pulled the seven-inch ceramic utility scalpel she had taken from the nursery medical kit hours ago—the razor she had kept hidden in her boot since the night Serena first threatened the baby.
The advancing bodyguard didn't expect a woman to charge. He expected Victor. His rifle was angled low, braced for a roll from a heavy combatant.
Lily lunged beneath the barrel of the rifle with the blinding speed of a mother defending her cub. She drove the ceramic razor upward, slipping it cleanly beneath the man’s jawline, severing the carotid artery with surgical precision.
Blood erupted across the white concrete. The guard gasped, his eyes bulging in shock as his weapon fell from his useless fingers.
Lily didn't let him fall. She seized the dead man’s rifle as he collapsed, spun around the side of the HVAC unit, brought the weapon to her shoulder, and fired a sustained, deafening burst straight through the cockpit glass of the Sikorsky helicopter.
The windshield shattered into a web of spider-cracks and blood. The pilot slumped forward over the cyclic control, his foot jamming down on the anti-torque pedal.
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The helicopter violently yawed forty degrees to the left, the tail rotor clipping the perimeter communications tower in an explosion of sparks and tearing metal.
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