Chapter 6 - A DEAD MAN’S LEGACY
Dorian didn't fight like an executive in a boardroom; he fought like a man who had spent his youth in the boxing rings of South Boston before his father’s fortune hauled him into high society.
He closed the five-foot distance before the spent casing from Morris's execution hit the ground. Dorian slammed his shoulder into the gunman’s sternum, driving the man violently against the jagged granite wall of the cavern.
The submachine gun discharged wildly into the stone ceiling, sending shards of rock raining down into the darkness.
The assassin was younger, trained, and clad in tactical armor, but Dorian was fueled by seven years of mourned parenthood and pure, unadulterated fury. Dorian drove his right elbow into the man’s temple, following with a vicious knee to the groin. The gunman gasped, dropping the weapon, but immediately drew a five-inch combat blade from his tactical vest, slashing upward in a vicious arc.
The steel bit deep into Dorian’s left forearm.
Pain flared white-hot, blood instantly soaking his cashmere sleeve, but Dorian didn't let go. He locked his bloody arm around the man’s throat, wrenching him downward while grabbing a loose, jagged piece of heavy slate from the cavern floor. With a guttural roar, Dorian smashed the rock across the assassin's jaw.
Bone cracked. The scarred man went limp, crashing into the shallow tide pool that seeped into the cavern floor from the subterranean outlet.
He was breathing, but his jaw was shattered and his eyes rolled loosely in his head.
Panting heavily, blood dripping from his shredded arm onto the stone, Dorian dropped the rock. He turned instantly toward Lyra, who was pressed against the far wall, her hands over her ears, her violet eyes wide with absolute horror.
"It’s over," Dorian gasped, falling to his knees and wrapping his good arm around her, pulling her small, shaking frame tightly against his chest. "I’ve got you, Lyra. I've got you."
"You're bleeding," she wept, her little fingers instantly covered in his blood.
"It's nothing. Just a scratch." Dorian picked up the assassin's dropped firearm, checked the chamber, and searched the man’s tactical vest. In an inner pocket, he found a rugged satellite phone and a laminated file folder sealed in waterproof plastic.
Dorian ripped open the plastic.
Inside were copies of medical logs from Saint Jude’s Memorial, dated seven years prior. Attached to the top was an execution order stamped with an offshore corporate seal—and signed in distinct, flourish-heavy green ink.
Dorian’s breath caught in his throat.
He recognized that ink. He had seen it on corporate memos, trust funds, and board resolutions for the past fifteen years.
It wasn't his late father who had ordered this tonight. His father was dead.
The man who had just ordered the execution of Dorian and this little girl was Julian Sterling—his late wife’s own brother, the current CEO of Sterling-Mercer Pharmaceuticals and Dorian’s closest business partner.
Julian had not only known his sister was murdered; he had orchestrated the cover-up to protect his multi-billion-dollar stock valuation.
Dorian’s satellite phone in his breast pocket began to vibrate violently. It was Frank Collins’s emergency line.
Dorian pressed the button and lifted it to his ear, his voice deadly calm. "Frank?"
A ragged, coughing breath answered. "Mr. Mercer... I'm alive. The bastards... thought I was dead. I managed to crawl to the master panic room and trigger the auxiliary hardwired siren. County police and state tactical units are rolling up the driveway right now. The remaining shooters fled into the woods."
"Frank, listen to me," Dorian said, watching the water rise around the unconscious assassin. "Julian Sterling is behind this."
A stunned silence hung on the line. "Sterling? He's... he's at the gala in Boston tonight. The Mercer Foundation charity ball."
Dorian looked down at Lyra, who was staring at him with complete, unreserved trust, her small hand clutching the silver medal.
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"Get a helicopter to the south lawn," Dorian commanded, his voice vibrating with lethal resolve. "Have the flight crew prep the twin-engine Sikorsky. We're going to Boston."
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