Chapter 4 - The Tarmac Trap
The cold rain stung Naomi’s face like needles as she pushed her legs to move faster across the slippery concrete of the tarmac. The roar of the Gulfstream’s engines was deafening, vibrating right through the soles of her shoes and rattling the glass of the nearby control tower.
Cassandra reached the bottom of the aircraft’s folding metal stairs, dropping her overnight bag with a heavy thud. She gripped the metal handrail, pulling herself up the first two steps, then turned around, her chest heaving, mascara running in dark streaks down her rain-drenched cheeks.
"Stay back, Elijah!" Cassandra shrieked, her voice amplified by the screaming wind. In her right hand, she wasn't holding a detonator—she was holding a small, silver-plated derringer pistol, its barrel gleaming ominously under the runway floodlights. "Don't you take another step, or I swear to God I’ll put a bullet through your precious corporate heart!"
Elijah stopped dead in his tracks, about thirty feet away from the base of the stairs. Water streamed down his face, plastering his dark hair to his forehead. He didn't look afraid; he looked like a man standing at the edge of an abyss, staring down at the creature that had lied to him for years.
"It’s over, Cassandra," Elijah said, his voice terrifyingly calm, carrying across the tarmac with absolute authority. "The police have your bank accounts frozen. The federal marshals have the bearer bonds. And the laboratory manifests linking you to the Vanguard forgery are already in the hands of the district attorney."
Cassandra’s grip on the tiny pistol wavered. Her eyes darted frantically around the tarmac, noting the three police cruisers that had now fanned out in a semi-circle, their spotlights locked directly on her chest. Two officers had already dropped to one knee, their service weapons raised and trained on her head.
"You think you’ve won, don't you?" Cassandra laughed hysterically, the sound sharp and piercing against the storm. "You arrogant billionaire fool! You built this entire empire on cutthroat deals and crushed rivals, and you thought you could just keep a pretty trophy wife in your mansion without paying the price? I didn't poison Toby to kill him, Elijah! I just wanted him sick enough to keep you distracted while I emptied your offshore accounts!"
Elijah flinched as if he had been physically struck. "He’s a four-year-old child, you psychotic bitch."
"He’s your weakness!" Cassandra screamed, stepping backward onto the third stair, her finger tightening around the trigger of the derringer. "And so was she!" She pointed the barrel directly at Naomi, who had just caught up to Elijah and stood slightly to his left. "If I’m going down, I’m taking the little charity-case doctor with me!"
Before Cassandra could finish the motion, a sharp crack echoed across the tarmac.
It wasn't the sound of Cassandra’s pistol.
From the shadow of the maintenance hangar forty yards away, a red laser dot flickered across Cassandra’s right wrist. A split second later, a precise, high-velocity bean-bag round fired from a police tactical shotgun struck the handrail inches from Cassandra’s fingers.
The impact sent a violent shockwave through her arm. With a sharp cry of pain, the derringer slipped from her fingers, clattering loudly against the metal stairs before bouncing down onto the wet concrete below.
"Federal agents! Don't move!" Detective Vance’s voice bellowed through a megaphone from behind the cruisers.
Before Cassandra could dive for the dropped weapon, three tactical officers swarmed the stairs like a wave of dark water. They hauled her down onto the concrete, slamming her face-first against the wet ground as steel cuffs snapped around her wrists with brutal efficiency.
As they hauled her up, kicking and screaming obscenities into the rainy night air, Cassandra glared at Naomi one last time, her eyes burning with pure venom.
May you like
"You haven't won, Naomi!" she shrieked as they shoved her into the back of a patrol car. "Elijah will destroy you all over again! He destroys everything he touches!"
Then the cruiser doors slammed shut, cutting off her voice, and the red and blue lights dissolved into the steady, rhythmic pulse of the night.
