Chapter 8 - The Shadow on the Twentieth Floor
"Get down!" Marcus roared, throwing his body over Tessa and me as glass rained down around us like frozen sharp rain.
Agent Reyes returned fire into the hallway, her suppressed pistol barking rapidly. A private security guard in black tactical gear collapsed near the elevator, his rifle skidding across the slick floor.
"We have to move!" Reyes shouted, reloading her weapon with practiced speed. "Vance’s security team is retreating to the twentieth floor to reach the roof helicopter pad!"
"He's trying to fly out!" I shouted over the blaring alarm.
"Not on my watch," Marcus growled, picking up the fallen security guard’s assault rifle. "Ethan, stay with Reyes and Tessa!"
"No," I said, a sudden, fierce conviction surging through my veins. "I'm coming with you. He stole three years of my family's life. He doesn't get to fly away."
"Ethan, no!" Tessa cried out, reaching for my hand.
I looked at her, kissing her deeply amidst the dust and smoke of the shattered room. "I'll be right back, Tess. I promise. I'm never leaving you again."
I grabbed a discarded sidearm from the floor, released the safety just as Marcus had taught me during our college years, and followed Marcus toward the emergency stairwell leading to the executive penthouse on the twentieth floor.
We burst through the stairwell door into the opulence of the twentieth floor. Unlike the cold, technical aesthetic of the server floor, this was a domain of dark mahogany wood, marble floors, and floor-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking the glittering skyline of Charlotte.
At the far end of the hallway, standing near the glass door leading to the helipad, was Richard Vance.
He was a man in his late fifties, impeccably groomed in a tailor-made navy suit, holding a silver briefcase in one hand and a leather duffel bag in the other. Beside him stood Julian Cross, holding a heavy tactical shotgun.
Outside the window, the thunderous chop of helicopter blades beat against the glass as a black private chopper hovered above the roof pad, its landing lights blindingly bright.
"Holloway!" Julian snarled, spotting us. He raised his shotgun and fired.
The blast shattered a mahogany pillar beside my head, wood splinters biting into my jacket. Marcus returned fire, forcing Julian behind a marble statue.
"Vance! Stop!" I shouted, stepping into the hallway, my gun aimed directly at the CEO. "It's over! The DOJ has your files! The Federal Reserve has frozen your accounts!"
Richard Vance turned to face me. His handsome, arrogant face was twisted into a grotesque sneer of rage.
"Ethan Whitford," Vance spat, his voice trembling with furious disbelief. "You insignificant little clerk. You were supposed to sit in your quiet little house and mourn your dead wife like a good, obedient pathetic loser!"
"My wife is alive, Vance," I said, taking a slow step forward, my weapon rock steady in my hands. "She survived your hitman. She survived your torture clinic. And she just handed your entire life over to the federal government."
Vance’s eyes widened with a terrifying, unhinged fury. He looked at Julian. "Kill him, Julian! Kill him now!"
Julian stepped out from behind the pillar, racking another shell into his shotgun.
Before he could pull the trigger, Marcus lunged from the side, tackling Julian through the glass door leading to the balcony. The two men crashed onto the wet concrete of the rooftop under the roaring blades of the helicopter, engaging in a brutal, hand-to-hand fight for control of the weapon.
Vance dropped his briefcase, pulled a small snub-nosed revolver from his jacket pocket, and aimed it right at my chest.
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"I built an empire!" Vance screamed over the roar of the storm and the sirens below. "I won't let a low-level accountant and her pathetic husband tear it down!"
He pulled the trigger.
