Chapter 48 - The Island of Black Glass
Elena didn't blink. She reached slowly into her coat pocket.
Julianna’s eyes dilated with greed. "Give it to me," she demanded, taking another step forward, extending her manicured hand. "Give it here!"
Elena pulled out the heavy, cerulean-glowing Master Cypher Key, holding it high between two fingers. The blue light reflected off Julianna’s face, mesmerizing her.
"You spent your whole life chasing what wasn't yours, Julianna," Elena said softly, her voice carrying an eerie calmness through the cavernous chamber. "You took my husband. You tried to take my life. You tried to steal my son's future."
Elena’s thumb slipped beneath the Key's bottom casing, flicking a concealed switch that Archibald Vance had never known existed.
"The problem with legacy syndicates," Elena whispered, "is that you always forget that a mother builds better traps than a patriarch."
*BEEP.*
A high-frequency tone tore through the room. The blue light on the key flashed violet, then blinding, searing white.
An EMP wave, concentrated and localized, exploded from the casing in a silent sphere of electromagnetic energy.
Instantly, every single light in the observation room blew out with a sharp shower of sparks. The targeting reticles on the mercenaries' weapons went dead. The automated locks on the perimeter blast doors slammed shut, and the heavy surveillance monitors along the walls shattered in rapid succession.
"Kill them!" Archibald roared into the sudden, pitch-black void. "Kill them now!"
Muzzle flashes strove through the dark like lightning bolts, illuminating the madness.
Alexander was already moving. He lunged straight at the mercenary holding Leo, his combat knife sliding from his hidden wrist sheath. In a single fluid arc, he severed the man’s throat before the guard could even raise his weapon, catching Leo in his left arm and spinning him away behind a heavy steel support pillar.
"I’ve got him!" Alexander shouted through the deafening gunfire.
Across the darkened chamber, Elena moved like an avenging fury.
A guard lunged at her with a combat blade; she ducked beneath the thrust, seized his forearm, drove the heel of her hand into his windpipe, and snatched his pistol out of midair as he collapsed.
She turned, tracking the outline of the white trench coat trying to scramble toward the emergency stairwell.
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"Julianna!" Elena called out.
Julianna whipped around, a small snub-nosed revolver clutched in her trembling hands, her perfect facade crumbling into hysterical panic. "Stay away from me, you bitch!"
