Chapter 24 - The Blood Ledger
The rain came down harder, slicking the rotting timber beneath their boots. Sebastian didn't move. His gaze bore into Antonio’s single good eye with an intensity that could have stripped paint from metal.
"You think you hold all the cards, Antonio," Sebastian spoke, his voice dropping to a register so cold it silenced the wind. "You always were too impatient to read the room. You spent ten years hiding in the shadows of Marseilles, relying on bribed dockworkers and corrupt councilmen. But you forgot one simple rule of the Rossi family."
"And what rule is that, little brother?" Antonio sneered, cocking the hammer of the revolver.
"Never threaten a child in front of the man who built this empire," Sebastian said.
Before Antonio could react, Sebastian’s right hand whipped out from beneath his trench coat. But he didn't draw a gun. He flicked a small, cylindrical flare directly into the face of the nearest mercenary. The blinding magnesium burst turned the pier into daylight. The guard screamed, clutching his incinerated eyes.
In that split second of total disorientation, Claire acted on pure instinct. She didn't drop to the floor as Sebastian had commanded. Instead, she lunged toward the overturned crate.
"Claire, no!" Sebastian roared.
Antonio fired. The gunshot cracked like lightning, the bullet grazing Claire’s left shoulder, tearing through her coat and leaving a line of searing fire along her skin. She stumbled, but her hands gripped the cold handle of the portable incubator just as Antonio’s second shot went wild.
Sebastian closed the distance in three explosive strides. He drew the ceramic blade hidden in his sleeve and drove it into the wrist of the second mercenary before the man could bring his rifle to bear. With a fluid, brutal pivot, Sebastian wrenched the rifle away, sweeping the butt of the weapon across the third guard’s jaw, dropping him instantly to the wooden deck.
Antonio snarled, pivoting the gold revolver toward Claire, who had successfully pulled the incubator against her chest, shielding the glass dome with her own bleeding body.
"If I can't have the bloodline, nobody will!" Antonio screamed.
He didn't fire at Claire. Instead, Antonio swung his heavy boot with vicious force, kicking the support beam directly beneath the edge of the pier where Claire was crouching.
The rotten wood groaned, splintered, and gave way with a deafening crack.
Claire felt the pier vanish beneath her. She gasped, clutching the heavy incubator with both arms, curling her body around the infant as she tumbled backward into the abyss.
"Claire!"
Sebastian lunged across the collapsing deck. His fingertips brushed the fabric of her coat, missing her by millimeters as the black, churning waters of the harbor swallowed her and the baby whole.
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Antonio laughed maniacally, retreating toward a high-speed zodiac boat tied to the lower ladder of the barge. "Go fetch your dead, brother!"
Sebastian didn't hesitate. He didn't even look at Antonio. Without a second thought, without stripping his heavy tactical vest or shedding his coat, Sebastian Rossi dove headfirst off the edge of the pier into the freezing, pitch-black sea.
