Chapter 9 - THE NIGHT WE BURNED THE EMPIRE DOWN
The first attacker never reached the hospital room.
Roman fired through the doorway.
A body dropped.
Adrian ripped the IV from his arm.
Sophia stared at him.
“You were shot in the chest.”
“I remember.”
“You had surgery eleven hours ago.”
“I remember that too.”
“You cannot fight.”
“Watch me.”
She grabbed his shirt.
“If you tear those stitches, I will personally kill you.”
He looked at her hand.
“This relationship has become surprisingly violent.”
“We do not have a relationship.”
“Then stop holding my shirt.”
Sophia released him.
“Insufferable.”
“Still here.”
Roman cleared the hallway.
Charles arranged an underground exit through the hospital laundry facility.
Within twelve minutes, they were inside an armored SUV.
Adrian looked terrible.
Pale.
Sweating.
Barely upright.
But his eyes were sharp.
Sophia sat beside him.
“You stay in the vehicle when we reach Laurent Tower.”
“No.”
“Adrian.”
“No.”
She stared.
“You are the most stubborn man I’ve ever met.”
“I was going to say the same about you.”
Charles interrupted.
“Children.”
Both turned toward him.
Charles smiled despite everything.
“Interesting.”
Sophia glared.
“Don’t.”
They reached Laurent Tower at 1:03 a.m.
Twenty-seven minutes remained.
The building had been evacuated earlier after a false gas-leak warning.
Elena’s people controlled the upper floors.
Victor’s remaining men arrived from the east.
Volkov men from the west.
For perhaps the first time in Bellhaven history, neither side shot at the other.
Adrian looked at both groups.
“This ends tonight.”
Nobody cheered.
Nobody needed to.
They entered.
Sophia knew the building better than anyone.
She led them through an executive service elevator that required her fingerprint.
Floor forty-eight.
The doors opened.
Gunfire.
Roman pulled Sophia behind the wall.
Adrian returned fire.
They moved upward floor by floor.
Twenty minutes.
Fifteen.
Twelve.
On floor fifty-two, they found Isabelle.
She was tied inside a conference room.
Sophia cut her free.
“Victor?”
“Roof.”
“Damian?”
“With Elena.”
“Bombs?”
Isabelle nodded.
“Central trigger.”
“Where?”
“Elena has it.”
Of course she did.
Adrian leaned against the wall.
Sophia noticed blood seeping through his shirt.
“Your wound.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I’ve done that before.”
“Adrian.”
He looked at her.
For the first time, she saw exhaustion.
Real exhaustion.
Not physical.
Years of it.
She stepped close.
“You don’t have to prove anything.”
His expression softened.
“I know.”
“Then let Roman finish this.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because my mother started this with my father.”
He touched her cheek.
“I end it.”
Sophia covered his hand.
“We end it.”
They reached the roof with six minutes remaining.
Rain whipped across the concrete.
Victor knelt near the edge, hands bound.
Damian stood beside Elena.
A pistol rested in his hand.
Elena held the detonator.
She smiled when she saw Adrian.
“My impossible son.”
Adrian raised his weapon.
“Let Victor go.”
“Still giving orders.”
“You taught me.”
“No. Mikhail taught you.”
Something almost jealous crossed her face.
Sophia stepped forward.
“Elena.”
“Ah. The woman who changed everything.”
“I didn’t change him.”
Elena laughed.
“Of course you did.”
Sophia looked at Adrian.
“No.”
Then back at Elena.
“He changed himself.”
Adrian’s eyes met hers.
Elena’s smile vanished.
“Love makes people weak.”
Victor laughed from the ground.
Elena turned.
“What?”
Victor looked at his sister.
“You’ve been saying that since you were seventeen.”
“Be quiet.”
“And yet every decision you’ve made for twenty years has been about people you claim not to love.”
Elena’s face hardened.
“You killed Mikhail because he chose Adrian over you.”
“Quiet.”
“You tried to destroy me because I stopped obeying you.”
“Victor.”
“You raised Isabelle because you wanted someone to choose you.”
Elena pointed the gun at him.
“And now you hate Sophia because Adrian chose her without being forced.”
“SHUT UP!”
The gunshot exploded.
Victor fell sideways.
“NO!” Isabelle screamed.
Damian moved.
He struck Elena’s wrist.
The detonator flew.
Sophia ran.
Elena fired at Damian.
He fell.
Adrian tackled Elena.
The detonator skidded toward the edge of the roof.
Sophia dove.
Her fingers closed around it.
Three minutes.
A digital timer blinked.
03:00.
02:59.
“HOW DO I STOP IT?”
Isabelle grabbed the device.
“I don’t know!”
Charles’s voice came through Sophia’s earpiece.
“Look for a secondary code.”
“There’s a keypad.”
“Try 1127.”
Sophia entered it.
INVALID.
02:31.
“Why 1127?”
“Mikhail’s birthday.”
Adrian and Elena fought near the edge.
His injuries slowed him.
She struck his chest.
He collapsed.
Sophia screamed his name.
Elena picked up her gun.
“Adrian!”
He looked up.
Elena aimed.
Damian, bleeding from his leg, threw himself into her.
The gun fired into the sky.
Victor crawled toward them.
Isabelle joined him.
Sophia stared at the detonator.
02:02.
“What else?” she shouted.
Charles was silent.
Then Adrian called across the roof.
“Sophia!”
She looked.
“Try your birthday!”
“Why?”
“My mother said she chose you.”
Sophia entered the date.
0-4-1-8.
The timer stopped.
00:01.
Silence.
Sophia stared.
One second.
One second away from losing everything.
Elena saw the stopped timer.
“No.”
She pushed Damian away and ran toward Sophia.
Adrian intercepted her.
They crashed against the railing.
Metal snapped.
Elena slipped.
Suddenly she was hanging over fifty-three floors of open air.
Adrian held her wrist.
Everyone froze.
Elena looked up at her son.
“You should let me fall.”
Adrian was shaking from the effort.
“You killed my father.”
“Yes.”
“You destroyed my family.”
“Yes.”
“You tried to kill Sophia.”
Elena smiled sadly.
“Yes.”
His fingers tightened.
Then he pulled her upward.
Sophia stared.
With Roman’s help, Adrian dragged Elena back onto the roof.
Police sirens filled the streets below.
Elena looked confused.
“Why?”
Adrian stood over her.
“Because you were wrong.”
“About what?”
“Love.”
He looked at Sophia.
“It didn’t make me weak.”
Federal agents flooded the roof minutes later.
Charles had sent the complete ledger.
Not to one agency.
To six.
Along with copies to investigative journalists and attorneys.
No single corrupt official could bury it.
Victor survived.
So did Damian.
Elena Kane was arrested.
For the first time in decades, the Kane-Volkov war was over.
But as paramedics placed Adrian on a stretcher, a federal agent approached Sophia.
“Ms. Laurent?”
“Yes?”
“I need you to come with us.”
Adrian immediately sat up.
“No.”
The agent looked at him.
“This concerns the ownership of Laurent International.”
Sophia frowned.
“What about it?”
The agent handed her a document.
She read the first page.
Then the second.
Her stomach dropped.
“What is this?”
Charles approached.
He saw the document.
His face went white.
Sophia looked at her father.
“Tell me this isn’t real.”
He said nothing.
Adrian took the papers.
The document showed a transfer executed twenty-seven years earlier.
Forty-nine percent of Laurent International had never belonged to Charles.
It had belonged to Mikhail Volkov.
And after his death, those shares legally passed to his surviving children.
Adrian.
And Isabelle.
Sophia stared at her father.
“So even if I keep my inheritance…”
Her voice broke.
“I don’t control my own company.”
Adrian looked at the papers.
Then at Sophia.
May you like
And for the first time since she met him, he said something she never expected.
“Then I’ll give it back.”
