Chapter 25 - Blood on the Elevator Floor
"The cleanup crew," Eleanor whispered, her face draining of what little warmth it possessed. "The syndicate knows the protocol is destabilized. They aren't waiting for midnight. They’re coming to sterilize the penthouse."
"How many floors down?" Daniel barked into the radio, grabbing Margaret by the arm and hauling her to her feet with practiced, protective efficiency.
"They bypassed the tenth floor! They’ll be on your deck in ninety seconds! Daniel, get out of there!" The radio died with a sharp crackle of static, followed by the unmistakable thud of a suppressed rifle discharge on the other end.
Vance was down.
"Move!" Daniel commanded, shoving Margaret toward the service corridor behind the kitchen.
"What about him?" Margaret asked, looking back at Christian, who was groaning, dragging his shattered body toward the open terrace.
"He made his bed," Daniel snapped. But he didn't leave Eleanor. He grabbed the older woman by the lapels of her black cashmere coat, slamming her against the wall, ripping the brass cylinder from her hand and shoving it into his tactical pouch alongside the first. "You stay in front of me. If you make a sound, if you try to slip away in the dark, I won't hesitate. Do you understand me?"
Eleanor glared at him, but there was a flicker of respect buried beneath the rage in her eyes. "You really do have my blood, boy. Let’s see if it keeps you breathing."
The heavy steel doors of the main service elevator groaned. The digital floor indicator blinked: *PH*.
*PING.*
Daniel didn't wait. He drew his Glock, stepped around the marble archway, and fired three rounds directly through the center seam of the elevator doors before they even began to open.
A muffled scream and a heavy metallic thud echoed from inside the shaft.
The elevator doors shuddered, then slid open halfway, jammed by the body of a contractor in black tactical gear, blood pooling from his neck. Behind him, two more operatives raised suppressed submachine guns.
"Down!" Daniel roared, throwing his entire body weight over Margaret, driving her behind the massive reinforced kitchen island just as a torrential hail of 9mm sub-sonic rounds shredded the penthouse.
The noise was deafening—a relentless, chewing roar of suppressed automatic fire tearing through cabinetry, shattering priceless crystal, pulverizing the marble walls into clouds of choking white plaster dust. Eleanor had dropped to her knees, tucking her body beneath the heavy mahogany dining table, her ivory cane clattering across the floor.
Daniel rolled out from behind the island on his back, firing upward at an angle through the sheetrock. The 9mm hollow points punched through the thin drywall, finding meat on the other side. A second contractor collapsed with a ragged grunt, dropping his weapon.
The third shooter stepped over his fallen comrades, his rifle leveled directly at the kitchen island where Margaret lay exposed.
Daniel’s slide locked back—empty.
"Daniel!" Margaret screamed.
In that fraction of a second, an unbelievable blur moved.
Eleanor Sterling, seventy-eight years old, lunged from beneath the dining table like an enraged viper. She didn't use a gun. She drove the shattered, jagged shaft of her broken ivory cane directly upward, underneath the contractor’s tactical helmet, driving the splintered wood through his carotid artery.
The operative gurgled, his eyes bulging behind his ballistic goggles. He dropped his rifle, his hands flying to his throat as arterial blood sprayed across Eleanor’s immaculate silver hair.
She stood over him, breathing heavily, her face splattered with gore, looking like an ancient, merciless goddess of war.
"You insolent dog," she hissed into the dying man’s face. "You don't shoot at a Sterling."
Daniel scrambled to his feet, slamming a fresh seventeen-round magazine into the Glock, catching the slide release with a sharp *clack*. He stared at the terrifying old woman who claimed to be his mother.
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Eleanor wiped a streak of warm blood from her cheek with the back of her gloved hand and turned to Daniel.
"We have seven minutes," she said coldly. "The subterranean vault is beneath the third basement of Maiden Lane. Take Charles’s private freight elevator in the rear corridor. And Daniel... if you don't run, none of us will live to see who holds the crown."
