Chapter 7 - The Final Defense
Chloe stepped directly in front of me, holding the heavy steel flashlight like a weapon, her hands shaking violently.
“Get away from her!” Chloe screamed at her uncle. “Don't touch her!”
“Move out of the way, girl,” Richard warned, stepping forward and reaching for my arm. “This doesn't concern you.”
Before Richard’s hand could touch me, Chloe swung the steel flashlight with all the strength in her young body.
The heavy flashlight struck Richard sharp across the side of his jaw.
He roared in pain, staggering backward, clutching his face as blood trickled from his lip. He lunged forward, grabbing Chloe by the arms and shoving her violently against the hallway wall.
The distraction was all I needed.
Despite the blinding contraction ripping through my body, the maternal instinct that had sustained me through a week of horror took absolute control.
I grabbed the heavy bronze decorative vase sitting on the hallway console table and swung it downward with pure, unfiltered rage.
The heavy bronze struck Richard squarely across the back of his shoulder.
He let out a choked groan, losing his balance on the top edge of the staircase—the exact spot where his sister Eleanor had intended for me to fall.
Richard slipped on his own wet leather soles, tumbling backward down the limestone steps, crashing heavily against the banisters before slamming onto the foyer floor below with a sickening thud.
He lay motionless at the bottom of the stairs, groaning softly, his arm twisted at an unnatural angle.
Chloe scrambled back to my side, panting frantically. “Is he... is he dead?!”
“No,” I panted, dropping the bronze vase, my knees buckling as another massive contraction hit me. “He’s... he’s just broken.”
Outside, the roar of powerful engines cut through the sound of the thunder.
Headlights flashed through the frosted glass windows as three vehicles pulled onto the lawn—not an ambulance, but two black SUVs and a marked police cruiser.
The front doors were kicked open.
Marcus Vance, Detective Miller, and four paramedics rushed into the foyer with flashlights, drawing their weapons as they saw Richard Mercer groaning on the floor.
“Victoria!” Marcus shouted, sprinting up the stairs two at a time.
He reached me just as my legs gave out completely. He caught me in his arms, lowering me gently to the floor as the paramedics rushed up behind him with a stretcher.
“We caught his signal jammer from the main road!” Detective Miller called up, stepping over Richard’s broken body. “Feds executed the warrant at his estate twenty minutes ago—we found the forged deeds!”
I looked up at Marcus, my face soaked with sweat, holding his hand with a grip that nearly broke his fingers.
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“The baby... Marcus... the baby is coming now!” I gasped.
“You’re going to be fine, Victoria,” Marcus said, tears of relief in his eyes as the paramedics carefully lifted me onto the stretcher. “It’s over. You won.”
