Chapter 6 - The Pursuit at Fort Worth
The Texas highway was a blur of rain and yellow sodium streetlights as I pushed my father's old Ford F-150 past eighty miles per hour.
Julian thought he was clever. He had played the foolish, spoiled stepson while Vanessa did the heavy lifting, but the electronic bank transfers showed he was the one actually liquidating the stolen assets through shell accounts in the Caribbean. If he got on that private Gulfstream jet with those paper stock certificates and digital bearer bonds, recovery would take years of international litigation—and Vanessa’s legal defense team would use the missing capital to post her bail.
I couldn't let him board that plane.
I pulled off the interstate onto the dark perimeter road surrounding the Fort Worth Executive Airfield. Rain slashed across the windshield in thick sheets. In the distance, the silhouette of a sleek private jet sat idling on the tarmac near Hangar 4.
I spotted Julian’s silver Porsche parked near the edge of the tarmac, its headlights still cutting through the darkness.
Julian was standing near the boarding stairs, furiously arguing with a man in a rain slicker while clutching a heavy leather duffel bag—the twin to my own.
I didn't turn on my high beams. I coasted the truck into the shadows beside Hangar 3, cut the engine, and stepped out into the pouring rain.
"Mr. Whitmore, we need to wheels-up now!" the pilot was shouting over the roar of the jet engines. "Air Traffic Control said there's a weather hold coming in ten minutes!"
"Just load the bags!" Julian yelled back, his voice trembling with manic anxiety. "I paid you double! Get us in the air!"
"He isn't going anywhere," I called out, my voice cutting through the engine noise and the roar of the rain.
Julian whipped around, his face pale under the tarmac floodlights. When he saw me walking out of the shadows—water dripping from my military fatigue jacket, my eyes cold and dead set on him—he panicked.
"Get away from me!" Julian screamed. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small snub-nosed revolver.
The pilot took one look at the gun, raised his hands, and sprinted back inside the hangar, slamming the service door behind him.
Julian's hand was shaking violently as he pointed the barrel at my chest. "Stay back, Claire! I swear to God I'll shoot you! You ruined everything! We had it all planned out! Richard was supposed to die months ago, but he kept hanging on!"
"You helped her poison him, didn't you, Julian?" I said, taking slow, deliberate steps forward. I didn't stop. In military close-quarters combat training, you learn that a nervous shooter with shaking hands is most dangerous at a distance—close the distance, and their control disappears.
"He was nothing to me!" Julian screamed over the rain. "He treated me like a charity project! He wouldn't give me the capital for my investments! He deserved it!"
"He gave you a home, Julian. He paid off your gambling debts three times," I said, my voice dangerously soft. "And when he realized what you were, you locked his mother in a cage so she couldn't tell the world."
"She belonged there!" Julian lost his mind, tightening his finger on the trigger.
I didn't wait for the hammer to fall.
I sidestepped to the left, closing the three-foot gap between us in a fraction of a second. My hand swept upward, striking his wrist with a hardened palm strike that sent the revolver flying into the rainy dark tarmac.
Before Julian could recover, I grabbed his lapel, executed a hip throw, and slammed him face-first onto the wet asphalt.
He groaned, struggling, but I pinned his right arm behind his back with an iron grip, applying pressure to the nerve cluster in his shoulder until he shrieked in pain.
"Game over, Julian," I whispered in his ear.
In the distance, red and blue lights illuminated the rain sheets. Three Fort Worth police cruisers and two unmarked federal vehicles pulled onto the tarmac, surrounding us.
Marcus stepped out of the lead cruiser, holding an umbrella, accompanied by Federal Agent Miller.
"Nice timing, Marcus," I said, lifting Julian off the ground and shoving him toward the federal agents.
Agent Miller handcuffed Julian, who was now weeping openly, his linen shirt soaked in dirty rainwater and grease.
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"Lieutenant Whitmore," Agent Miller said, looking at the leather bag Julian had dropped. "Is this the rest of the stolen asset documentation?"
"Everything," I said, wiping the rain from my forehead. "Now let's go end this in court."
