713 The Inheritor's Vengeance: Secrets, Ashes, and the Legacy of Blood

I didn't turn around right away. I let my fingers rest against the cold leather of the duffel bag, my mind racing through the thin margin of escape routes in the baggage corridor.

"You're a hard man to track down at two in the morning, Lucas," a voice said—smooth, professional, and entirely devoid of warmth.

It wasn't a airport security guard. It was Vance, my father’s high-priced corporate attorney. He stepped into my field of vision, holding a sleek black Walther pistol pointed squarely at my midsection. His tailored suit was immaculate, completely out of place against the grease-stained walls of the terminal storage bay.

"Vance," I said, keeping my voice low and level. "You're representing a criminal enterprise that just committed arson on a federally registered historical property. Brandishing an illegal firearm in a public transit zone adds about twenty years to whatever sentence Gregory is already facing."

Vance smiled, a tight, humorless stretching of his lips. "Your father is an emotional hothead who ruined his own leverage by losing his temper. But Gregory was useful for one thing: keeping the family estate tied up in probate while we quietly transferred the commercial holdings offshore."

He stepped closer, his free hand reaching out to snap the locker door shut.

"Step away from the bag, Lucas. The courts move slowly, but private international shipping containers move tonight."

"You think Harper and my mother are waiting for you on a flight to Zurich?" I asked, watching his eyes for a micro-expression of doubt. "Because the polaroid she left me told a slightly different story."

Vance’s expression didn't flicker, but his thumb adjusted the safety on the pistol. "Harper is a liability. Her mother knows it, too. By sunrise, they’ll be flagged as material witnesses to an arson investigation, and you'll be sitting in a jail cell for violating a federal property injunction."

He raised the barrel higher, lining it up with my chest. "Now, slide the duffel bag across the floor. Slowly."

I looked down at the metal floor tiles. The reflection of the overhead fluorescent tubes gleamed off the polished surface. I could hand over the bag, watch him walk out to a private tarmac, and spend the next five years of my life fighting a corrupt legal machine that had already stolen my childhood.

Or I could take a gamble on the element of surprise.

I crouched lower, pretending to lose my balance as I slid my foot backward against the concrete wall, my heel connecting hard with the metal housing of the fire alarm lever mounted just behind my shoulder.