Chapter 29 - The Last Vance
The fight was brutal, a feral clash of brothers on a burning precipice. Victor was driven by madness and a lifetime of toxic jealousy; Maxwell was fueled by a cold, righteous vengeance for his father, for the months of torture he had endured, and for the innocent lives Victor had snuffed out.
Victor slashed wildly with the tactical knife, the blade cutting a silver arc through the heavy rain. Maxwell dodged backward, the blade tearing through the fabric of his soaked shirt, grazing his ribs.
Maxwell didn't recoil. He stepped inside Victor’s guard, driving a devastating right hook into his brother’s jaw. The impact sent Victor stumbling backward on the slick concrete of the helipad, blood flying from his mouth.
"You're weak, Max!" Victor spat, recovering quickly and lunging again, driving the knife toward Maxwell’s stomach.
Maxwell grabbed Victor’s wrist with both hands, halting the blade inches from his abdomen. The two brothers grappled in the center of the storm, their muscles straining to the breaking point. The heat from the burning mansion below radiated up, warring with the freezing rain.
Victor was stronger, his body not having suffered six months of muscular atrophy. He slowly forced the blade closer and closer to Maxwell’s chest, a psychotic grin spreading across his face.
"You should have just died in the bed, Max," Victor hissed. "It would have been so much more peaceful."
Suddenly, a heavy piece of steel swung out of the darkness, connecting solidly with the back of Victor’s knee.
Victor howled in pain, his leg buckling.
Martha stood behind him, clutching the heavy iron grate from the ventilation shaft in both hands, her eyes blazing with defiance. "Get away from him!"
The distraction was all Maxwell needed. He twisted Victor’s wrist violently, forcing his brother to drop the knife, and delivered a crushing knee to Victor’s chest. Victor collapsed backward, sliding across the wet concrete toward the unprotected edge of the roof.
Victor scrambled to stop his momentum, his hands desperately clawing at the slick stone, but the rainwater provided no friction. He slid over the lip of the roof, managing to catch the stone ledge with one hand at the last possible second.
He dangled there, hundreds of feet above the raging inferno of the collapsed conservatory.
Maxwell walked slowly to the edge, looking down at the man who had orchestrated his living nightmare.
"Max!" Victor screamed, his eyes wide with absolute, pathetic terror. The madness had vanished, replaced by the cowardice that had always lived at his core. "Max, please! I'm your brother! Pull me up!"
Maxwell stared down at him, his face an unreadable mask of stone and rain. He thought of his father, bleeding out in the server room. He thought of his own paralyzed body, trapped in the dark while Victor smiled.
Maxwell didn't stomp on Victor's fingers. He didn't push him.
He simply stood there, watching, and did absolutely nothing.
"MAX!" Victor shrieked as his grip on the slick stone finally failed.
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Victor Vance fell backward into the abyss, his scream swallowed by the thunder, disappearing into the roaring flames of the mansion below.
Maxwell stood at the edge for a long time, the rain washing the blood from his hands, until he felt Martha step up beside him, gently wrapping her arms around his waist.
