Chapter 14 - The Final Glass
Eleanor slammed her shoulder into the heavy oak door just as Victoria tried to seal the panic room from the inside. The force drove both women falling onto the cold marble floor inside the vault.
Victoria scrambled across the floor, reaching for a small pearl-handled revolver resting on a shelf. But Eleanor was faster. She kicked the revolver away, pinning her mother to the floor, her gun pressed firmly against Victoria’s forehead.
"Do it," Victoria whispered, a sick, victorious smile touching her lips. "Shoot your own mother, Eleanor. Prove that you are just like me. Prove that the Sterling blood corrupts everything it touches."
Eleanor stared down at the woman who had brought her into the world, the woman who had orchestrated every second of her agony, her terror, and her heartbreak. Her finger tightened on the trigger. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird.
“If I pull this trigger, she wins,” Eleanor realized with sudden, crystal-clear clarity. “She wants me to become a monster.”
Slowly, deliberately, Eleanor lowered the hammer of her gun. She leaned down close to her mother’s ear.
"I am nothing like you," Eleanor said, her voice dripping with ice. "You lost, Victoria. Not because I killed you... but because I chose to stay human."
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Julian burst into the panic room, covered in dust and blood, his weapon raised. He stopped dead when he saw Eleanor standing tall over her defeated mother, who was staring up in stunned, hollow disbelief.
From the hallway outside, the wail of Swiss police sirens grew louder, piercing the quiet night over Lake Geneva.
