Chapter 8 - THE ROOFTOP GAMBIT
The rooftop of the Sterling Harbor Hotel was a battleground of wind and torrential rain.
Fifty stories above the historic harbor, the twin turbines of an AgustaWestland executive helicopter were spooling up, their high-pitched whine deafening in the storm. The rotors whipped the rain into a blinding vortex of mist.
Julian Sterling stood on the wet helipad, his soaked overcoat flapping violently against his legs. He clutched a heavy aluminum attache case to his chest with one arm, shielding his eyes from the downpour with the other. A private pilot in an orange flight suit was gesturing frantically from the cockpit window, signaling that wind shears were approaching dangerous limits and they had to lift off immediately.
Julian turned to sprint toward the open cabin door when the heavy steel access door to the roof stairwell was kicked open, slamming back against the brick bulkhead.
Grant Holloway stepped out onto the roof.
He was soaked to the skin, his knuckles bruised, his collar torn, but his eyes carried the weight of an unshakeable vengeance. The wind roared around them, screaming across the parapets of the hotel tower.
Julian stopped in his tracks, turning to face him. The sheer shock on Julian’s face curdled into a desperate, feral snarl. He reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a compact, snub-nosed revolver.
“Stay back, Grant!” Julian screamed over the deafening roar of the helicopter engines. “I’ll shoot you where you stand! I’ll tell them you were the mastermind who tried to silence me!”
Grant didn't stop. He walked forward across the wet asphalt, closing the distance with steady, measured strides.
“Put the gun down, Julian,” Grant said, his voice cutting through the tempest. “It’s over. Marcus is in federal custody at Pier 19. Laura Holloway is alive. The IRS has your offshore account routing numbers. There is nowhere on this earth you can run where they won't find you.”
“You think I care about Marcus?” Julian shrieked, his hand shaking as he leveled the revolver at Grant’s chest. “I built this network! I spent ten years taking orders from your father, then ten more watching you act like a benevolent king while I did the dirty work! I deserve this property! I deserve this money!”
“My father gave you a home, an executive title, and twenty percent of every dollar this hotel ever made!” Grant shouted back, stopping five feet from the barrel of the gun. “You didn't build this harbor, Julian. You poisoned it. You starved a child whose only crime was sharing my last name.”
Julian’s finger tightened on the trigger. His eyes were wild, unhinged by the realization that his grand design had collapsed in a single morning. “I should have killed her mother the day she opened that ledger,” Julian hissed.
He squeezed the trigger.
Click.
The wet powder failed to ignite in the torrential downpour. Julian gasped in horror, racking the slide frantically to clear the misfired chamber.
Grant surged forward. He slapped the weapon from Julian’s grip, sending the revolver skittering across the slick roof where it vanished over the edge into the abyss below. Grant’s right fist connected squarely with Julian’s jaw, a devastating blow packed with years of betrayal and righteous fury.
Julian crumpled to his knees on the helipad, his aluminum briefcase tumbling from his grip and popping open against the tarmac.
Bundles of hundred-dollar bills, Swiss bearer bonds, and a encrypted physical security token spilled out across the wet surface, trapped against the wire safety netting of the helipad.
The helicopter pilot, seeing his passenger subdued and realizing the situation was compromised, immediately pulled pitch. The aircraft lifted vertically into the rain, banking hard away from the hotel and disappearing into the stormy clouds over the Atlantic, leaving Julian Sterling completely abandoned.
Julian lay on the wet ground, clutching his bleeding face, weeping in pathetic, impotent rage.
Grant reached down, picked up the encrypted hardware token—the ultimate key to unraveling every shell company and restoring the hotel’s stolen fortune—and slipped it into his pocket.
The rooftop door opened once more, and a squad of tactical state troopers rushed onto the roof, weapons drawn, taking positions around the fallen executive.
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“Julian Sterling,” the arresting officer shouted over the wind, clicking handcuffs around Julian’s wrists. “You are under arrest for attempted murder, racketeering, grand larceny, and corporate fraud.”
Grant turned his back on Julian’s curses, walking toward the warm interior of the hotel stairwell. He had saved his business, but his heart was fifty floors below, where his family was waiting.
