Chapter 14 - The Unthinkable Choice
"Untie Leo," Rose said, her voice dropping into an uncanny, terrifying calm. "You want me. Take me. Put the bullet in my head, but let the boy go. He’s an innocent."
"Innocent?" Victoria sneered, stepping closer until the cold steel barrel pressed against Rose's forehead. "His only crime was sharing your dirty blood. And I want you to watch him die first."
Victoria pivoted the barrel toward Leo, who whimpered behind the gag, struggling against the ropes dangling him over the icy, churning black river.
"Three seconds, Rose," Victoria whispered with pure evil glee. "Beg me. On your knees. Kiss my boots and tell me you’re nothing, and maybe I’ll give him a quick death."
Rose looked at Leo. She saw the boy who had smiled through cold winter nights when they shared a single bowl of broth. The boy she had sworn to her dying mother she would protect at the cost of her own life.
Slowly, deliberately, Rose sank to one knee.
Victoria threw her head back and laughed, an echoing sound of triumphant insanity. "Look at the great Mrs. Vance! Back on her knees where she belongs!"
"You're right about one thing, Victoria," Rose whispered from the wet floor, her hands resting flat in a puddle of rainwater.
Victoria frowned, lowering her gaze. "What?"
"I was a maid for six years," Rose said, looking up, her eyes burning like twin stars of cold steel. "And a maid knows how to work under the floorboards."
Rose's right hand didn't grasp the floor—it ripped upward, pulling a hidden steel wire she had concealed beneath the rain-soaked floorboard the moment she stepped out of the vehicle.
The wire pulled the pin on a flash-bang grenade magnetically attached to the underside of the catwalk.
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*BANG!*
A blinding explosion of ten million candlepower and 170 decibels detonated directly above Victoria's mercenaries.
