Chapter 7 - The Sky Burns Red"No!" Valerio yelled, his heart stopping.
"I programmed the automated defense drone to execute target zero if my heart rate spikes above 160!" Eleanor laughed hysterically beneath his arm. "If I die, or if my heart stresses... she dies in the sky!"
Inside the ascending helicopter, the cockpit alarm began to blare a continuous, shrill warning tone.
"Miss Vance! We have a missile lock!" the pilot yelled frantically over the intercom. "Deploying flares!"
Alessia looked out the window. Through the rain and clouds, she saw the glowing red eye of the predatory drone closing in rapidly from the north.
She looked down at her paralyzed leg. The numbness had spread higher, reaching her waist. But inside her mind, something shifted. A cold, absolute clarity replaced the fear that had paralyzed her all night.
"Pilot!" Alessia commanded, her voice dropping into an uncanny, commanding tone she didn't recognize as her own. "Execute a high-g bank to the left! Divert all reserve power to the rear thrusters!"
"What?! Miss, that will stall the main rotor!"
"Do it now!" she ordered.
The pilot, intimidated by the sheer authority in her voice, slammed the control stick to the left. The helicopter banked violently at an eighty-degree angle, dropping fifty feet through the air.
The drone's missile streaked past the tail rotor by inches, exploding harmlessly in the clouds below them.
On the rooftop, Valerio saw the explosion in the distance. For a horrific second, he thought the helicopter had been destroyed. But then, through the smoke, the aircraft emerged, swooping back around in a tight arc.
"She... she dodged it?" Eleanor gasped, her eyes wide with disbelief.
Valerio looked down at his mother, his expression turning into a mask of pure death. "You underestimated her. Just like you underestimated me."
Valerio pulled a pair of heavy tactical handcuffs from his belt and slammed Eleanor’s wrists into the steel structural railing of the helipad, locking her securely in place.
"You're leaving me here?!" she screamed.
"The police and the federal marshals will be here in five minutes," Valerio said coldly, picking up an abandoned assault rifle from the floor. "I'm letting them deal with you. Death is too merciful."
Suddenly, the helicopter descended back toward the helipad, hovering just ten feet above the surface. The side door flew open.
Alessia was sitting on the edge of the open doorway, holding onto the safety strap with one hand, a heavy flare gun in the other.
"Valerio! Jump!" she screamed over the roar of the blades.
Valerio didn't hesitate. He took a running leap off the edge of the helipad, hurling his body through the open air, and caught the edge of the helicopter floor with both hands.
Alessia grabbed his tactical vest with all her remaining strength, pulling him upward as he hauled himself into the cabin.
They fell onto the floor of the cabin together, breathless, soaked, and bleeding.
Valerio pulled her into a tight embrace, burying his face in her wet hair. "You crazy woman... you came back for me."
"I told you," Alessia whispered, her hands cupping his bloody cheeks. "We wear the same ring. Your life is my life."
"Where to, boss?" the pilot shouted from the front.
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Valerio looked back down at the burning estate, where police sirens were now flashing in the distance, surrounding the property.
"Take us to the safe house in Geneva," Valerio ordered. "It’s time we unlock the vault inside my wife."
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