Chapter 13 - The Blackmail Archives—The Chase Through Manhattan
“You’re an assassin?” I gasped, taking Aris’s hand and pulling myself up from the bloody pavement.
“I was a surgeon first,” Aris said, handing me a loaded pistol from one of the dead guards. “But your father knew Eleanor was a psychopath. He knew she faked her coma to manipulate her sons from the shadows. He hired me to watch over you, Mara.”
“She took my children, Aris. She’s taking them to the intelligence servers.”
“The Blackwood Estate in upstate New York,” Aris nodded, running toward a sleek black motorcycle parked under a tarp near the dumpsters. “That’s where the physical servers for the blackmail network are kept. If she gets them inside that compound, they disappear forever.”
I threw my leg over the back of the motorcycle, wrapping my arms tight around Aris’s waist. “Then we don't let her get there.”
Aris gunned the engine, and we tore out of the alley, weaving recklessly through Manhattan traffic. The rain pelted my face like needles, but I didn't feel the cold. I only felt a mother’s absolute, apocalyptic rage.
Eleanor had orchestrated everything. She let Grant drug me. She let Julian breed me like cattle. She let Silas hunt me. All to create the perfect heirs for her sick empire while keeping her own hands clean.
Up ahead on the West Side Highway, we spotted the black limousine escorted by two black SUVs.
“Hold on!” Aris yelled over the wind.
He accelerated, weaving between cars at ninety miles per hour. We pulled up alongside the trailing SUV.
A window rolled down. A mercenary aimed a submachine gun at us.
I didn't wait. I raised the pistol, steadied my breathing, and fired three shots through the window. The driver slumped over the wheel. The SUV violently swerved, flipping over the median barrier in a massive shower of sparks and crushed metal.
“One down!” Aris shouted, pushing the bike faster.
The limousine was pulling ahead, racing toward the George Washington Bridge.
Suddenly, the roof hatch of the limousine opened.
A man stood up through the sunroof holding a heavy tactical grenade launcher.
“Swerve!” I screamed.
The man fired. A high-explosive round slammed into a delivery truck right beside us.
The explosion sent a shockwave of heat and force across the highway. Aris lost control of the motorcycle. We skidded sideways, the tires screaming against the wet asphalt, before the bike flipped completely.
I was thrown into the air, hitting the pavement and rolling violently until I slammed into the concrete guardrail.
My vision blurred. Every bone in my body felt shattered.
Through the ringing in my ears, I watched the limousine speed away across the bridge, carrying my children into the dark.
Aris was lying ten feet away, motionless in a pool of blood.
I tried to crawl toward him, but my legs wouldn't obey.
A pair of polished black boots walked into my line of sight.
I looked up.
Standing over me, soaking wet from the East River, bleeding from a massive gash on his forehead, was Julian.
He had survived the vault.
And he was holding a gun to my head.
“You really are hard to kill, little sister,” Julian spat, coughing up river water. “But so am I.”
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