Chapter 48 - The Vault of Sins
The impact sent the tail boom spinning away into the dark gardens below. The main cabin slammed down onto its side with a sickening crunch of crushed aluminum and shattered glass, pinned to the roof by the collapsed mast of the communications tower.
The rotors struck the concrete with apocalyptic violence, disintegrating into thousands of lethal carbon-fiber shrapnel pieces that whipped across the rooftop, shredding the ventilation units and tearing through the night air.
Victor threw himself over Lily and Leo, shielding their bodies with his own as razor-sharp metal whistled overhead, slicing deep gouges into the brick parapet behind them.
Then, silence fell over the rooftop, save for the whistling wind, the hissing of severed hydraulic lines, and the agonizing, sputtering gasps of the child.
Victor scrambled to his feet, ignoring the blood running down his own back where shrapnel had torn his jacket. He sprinted through the smoking debris toward the overturned wreckage of the helicopter.
The passenger door had been ripped off its hinges.
Inside the mangled cabin, Eleanor Blackwood lay trapped beneath the collapsed partition of the executive seats. Her cashmere coat was soaked in jet fuel and hydraulic fluid, her immaculate hair ruined, a deep gash cutting across her porcelain forehead.
Yet, despite her crushed legs, her hands were still clamped tightly around the silver medical refrigeration case.
Victor reached into the twisted wreckage, his hands gripping the edges of the aluminum case.
Eleanor opened her eyes. Blood trickled from the corner of her lips, but the cold, narcissistic venom in her gaze had not diminished by a fraction.
"You take that case..." Eleanor choked out, coughing up dark blood, "...and you destroy... the Blackwood name forever. The Zurich accounts... the Syndicate... they will hunt that boy to the ends of the earth. You cannot protect him from the world I built."
"I don't need to protect him from your world, Mother," Victor snarled, ripping the case from her broken fingers with savage force. "I'm going to burn your world to ash."
He turned his back on her, leaving her pinned in the fuel-soaked wreckage without a second glance.
"Lily! Bring him here!" Victor yelled, dropping to his knees on the wet concrete and slamming the silver case open on the deck.
Inside, nestled in custom foam, sat three pre-filled glass auto-injectors containing a clear, amber liquid—the pediatric formulation of the antidote.
Lily slid across the wet concrete, collapsing beside him, cradling Leo in her arms. The baby’s skin had turned a terrifying, dusky gray. His lips were still, his eyes half-closed, glassy and unseeing. He had stopped moving.
"Victor, hurry!" Lily sobbed, her fingers tearing at the baby’s onesie, exposing his pale, tiny thigh. "Please, God, please, Victor, do it!"
Victor’s hands, which had never trembled while holding a firearm, were shaking violently. He uncapped the auto-injector, his vision blurring with tears he refused to let fall.
"Hold his leg steady," Victor whispered.
Lily pinned Leo’s tiny knee against the concrete.
Victor drove the needle into the lateral muscle of the infant’s thigh. The injector clicked—a sharp, mechanical snap that injected the amber serum directly into the child’s bloodstream.
One second passed. Two seconds. Three seconds.
Nothing.
The baby lay completely limp in Lily’s arms. The rain poured down over his tiny, motionless face.
"No," Lily whimpered, rocking the child frantically against her chest. "No, no, no! Leo! Leo, look at me! Breathe, baby, please breathe!"
Victor stared at his son, his breath catching in his throat, a chasm of absolute, suffocating despair opening beneath his feet.
"Leo..." Victor whispered, reaching out a trembling, blood-soaked hand to touch the infant's cheek.
May you like
Then, a sudden, violent gasp tore from the child’s lungs.
***
