Chapter 4 - The Strike at the Waterfront
Friday morning arrived under a dark, bruised gray sky. A heavy snowstorm was blowing off Lake St. Clair, casting the city of Detroit in a thick blanket of white.
Harlan left for the downtown corporate headquarters at seven AM, flanked by an extra security detail. He had kissed me deeply in the grand foyer before leaving, promising to be back by noon.
At ten AM, I was in the sunroom with Belle, helping her assemble a complex wooden puzzle of a Victorian greenhouse.
Suddenly, the glass windows of the sunroom shattered into a hundred flying shards.
"DOWN!" Marcus roared from the doorway, drawing his weapon as heavy gunfire echoed across the rear courtyard.
I threw my body over Belle, shielding her small frame with mine on the Persian rug as glass showered down around us.
"RUE!" Belle shrieked, clutching my sweater.
"Stay down! Keep your head covered!" I screamed over the deafening noise.
Outside, shouting, barking attack dogs, and the sharp cracks of suppressed automatic weapons echoed across the estate grounds. Victoria Sterling hadn't waited for the board meeting. Realizing Harlan’s security team had captured her enforcer, she had launched a desperate, scorched-earth assault on the Bloomfield Hills estate to eliminate Belle and me before Harlan could present the evidence to the authorities.
The heavy oak doors of the sunroom were kicked open.
Two men in black tactical gear stepped into the room, assault rifles raised. Marcus fired two quick shots, taking one down, but the second man struck Marcus across the helmet with the butt of his rifle, knocking him unconscious onto the floor.
I scrambled up, grabbing a heavy bronze statuette from a side table, standing between the remaining gunman and Belle.
"Don't move, girl," the gunman grunted, raising his weapon toward my chest.
Behind him, a figure stepped through the shattered window frame, wiping snow from her white mink coat. Victoria Sterling. Her hair was wind-blown, her face twisted into an expression of frantic, psychotic rage.
"Look at you," Victoria sneered, holding a sleek silver revolver in her gloved hand. "The little waitress playing house in my sister's mansion."
"You're insane, Victoria," I said, my voice steady despite the adrenaline surging through my veins. "Harlan knows everything. The police know everything. You're never getting control of this company."
"Harlan is currently stuck in traffic on the Lodge Freeway behind a jackknifed tanker truck my men staged ten minutes ago," Victoria grinned wildly, pointing her revolver directly at my forehead. "By the time he clears the gridlock and gets back here, his precious little daughter and his new little pet will have died in a tragic house fire caused by a gas leak."
"You monster!" I yelled.
"Take the child to the car," Victoria ordered her gunman. "I'll handle the girl."
The gunman stepped toward Belle.
"NO!" I shrieked.
Without thinking, I lunged forward, swinging the heavy bronze statuette with all my strength. It struck the gunman squarely across the side of his knee. He let out a wet roar of pain, stumbling sideways and dropping his rifle onto the rug.
Victoria raised her revolver, her finger tightening on the trigger. "Die, you miserable bitch!"
BANG!
A shot shattered the air.
Victoria’s revolver flew out of her hand in a spray of metal and blood. She screamed, clutching her ruined right wrist as she fell to her knees on the glass-covered floor.
Standing in the shattered doorway of the sunroom, framed by blowing snow and dark smoke, was Harlan Voss.
He wore his charcoal coat, his face terrifyingly calm, a heavy black firearm held steadily in his right hand. Behind him, dozens of tactical officers and state troopers were sweeping the hallway, taking down Victoria’s remaining men.
"Harlan..." Victoria sobbed, cradling her bleeding hand on the floor. "Harlan, please! They forced me! The syndicate forced me—"
Harlan didn't even look at her. He walked past her as if she were garbage on the street.
He dropped to his knees beside Belle and me, throwing his massive arms around both of us, pulling us tightly against his broad chest. His heart was hammering violently against his ribs—the first time I had ever felt this powerful, unshakeable man break into pure panic.
"Are you hurt?" Harlan rasped into my hair, his hands frantically checking my arms, my shoulders, my face. "Rue... look at me... are you hurt?"
"I'm okay," I sobbed, wrapping my arms around his neck, burying my face in his shoulder. "Belle is okay. I kept her safe."
Harlan squeezed his eyes shut, his entire frame shaking as he kissed my forehead, my cheeks, and my lips with fierce, wild devotion.
"You kept her safe," Harlan whispered, his voice thick with uncharacteristic tears. "You kept us all safe."
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He turned his head slowly toward Victoria, who was being cuffed by two state troopers on the floor. His gray eyes were colder than the snow blowing through the broken window.
"Take her away," Harlan ordered the officers quietly. "Ensure she spends the rest of her life in a maximum-security facility. If she ever breathes the same air as my family again, I will personally burn everything she has ever touched."
