Chapter 20 - When the Sky Burns Again
The screen of the tablet flickered to life, showing the shattered security gates of the Sterling estate. The front courtyard was on fire. Two armored tactical vans were parked on the lawn, and on the front steps lay the unconscious bodies of Anna’s Swiss private guards.
Anna’s scream was a sound of pure, unadulterated madness. She grabbed the tablet with shaking hands, her fingernails cracking against the glass.
"No... no, no, no! Leo! LEO!"
The video feed shifted automatically. A live encrypted transmission took over the screen.
The camera opened inside an abandoned, echoing aircraft hangar—the smell of jet fuel and damp concrete almost palpable through the high-definition feed. Tied to a wooden chair in the center of the vast hangar was three-year-old Leo. The little boy was crying, clutching the small hand-carved cedar horse Vincent had made for him, his terrified sobs echoing against the hollow metal walls.
Above the boy’s head hung a complex industrial rig: three pressurized fuel canisters connected to an array of red thermite demolition charges.
Stepping into the camera frame was Julian Vance. His bespoke suit was shredded, his face blackened with soot and dried blood, his eyes shining with the deranged ecstasy of a man who had completely abandoned his humanity.
"Good evening, Vincent. Hello, Anna," Julian said, his voice whistling through cracked teeth. "I told you the fire always finishes what it starts."
Vincent grabbed the edges of the tablet, his voice dropping into a guttural, terrifying roar that rattled the windows of the Maybach. "Julian! If you touch him, I will rip you limb from limb! I will burn your entire bloodline from the face of the earth!"
Julian laughed—a high, manic, psychotic sound that echoed through the car’s speakers.
"You won't burn anything, Vincent. Because you have a choice. Exactly like Aspen."
Julian turned the camera slightly, showing the wider hangar floor. Parked forty yards away from the boy was an ancient, decommissioned private jet, its engines idling, fuel lines snaking across the concrete like black serpents.
"You have twenty minutes," Julian whispered, tapping the thermite detonator against his chin. "Hangar Four, Gary International Airport. The exact location where your private jet took off three years ago. If you call the federal authorities, I detonate the charges. If you bring more than one car, I detonate the charges."
Julian leaned into the camera lens, his predatory grin filling the screen.
"Anna walks into the hangar alone with the signed custody surrender and full power of attorney for the Sterling trust. She gives up the boy, and she walks away alive. Or..." Julian paused, turning his cold, dead eyes directly toward Vincent. "Vincent can take the boy's place in the chair. And this time, Anna... you get to hold the match and watch him burn."
The screen snapped to black.
The silence inside the Maybach was suffocating, broken only by the sound of Anna’s jagged, hysterical weeping. She dropped her head into her hands, her body rocking back and forth in the backseat, shattered beyond repair.
"My baby... they have my baby..."
Vincent sat completely motionless. The blood dripping from his brow trickled down the side of his nose, falling like a solitary red tear onto his white shirt.
He didn't look broken now. He looked like an ancient warrior who had finally reached the field of his prophesied death. He reached out, his hand steady and warm, and gently covered Anna’s trembling hands.
Anna looked up, her blue eyes wide, wild, and drowning in terror.
"Vincent... what do we do?" she sobbed, the pride, the hatred, the three years of bitterness entirely erased by a mother's desperate agony. "What do we do?"
Vincent looked at the woman he had failed on that snowy runway in Aspen. He looked at the scars he had caused, and the love he had buried beneath three years of arrogant regret.
He leaned forward, pressing a soft, lingering, final kiss to the back of her cold, trembling hand.
"You don't sign anything, Anna," Vincent said softly, his voice filled with a devastating, absolute peace. "You're going to get our son back."
"Vincent... what are you going to do?" Anna whispered, a new, terrifying dread clutching her heart.
Vincent tapped the glass partition, looking at Marcus in the rearview mirror.
"Marcus. Take us to Hangar Four."
May you like
Vincent racked the slide of his Glock with a sharp, metallic snap, looking out into the pouring rain as the airport towers appeared on the dark horizon.
"Tonight," Vincent murmured, his eyes reflecting the distant, burning lights of the runway, "I pay my debt."
