Chapter 9 - The Siege of the Sky Gate
Panic erupted in the ballroom. High-society guests scattered in chaos as federal agents swarmed the stage. Julian Vance lunged forward, grabbing Victoria violently by the arm to use her as a human shield as he sprinted toward the stage’s side service door.
"Julian! Let me go!" Victoria shrieked, struggling against his iron grip as he dragged her down the narrow service corridor toward the private elevator line leading to the rooftop helipad.
"Shut up, you idiot!" Julian roared, shoving her into the high-speed elevator and pressing the roof button. "They have the accounts! The whole system is burned! We take the helicopter to the private airstrip in Oregon or we spend the rest of our lives in a supermax prison!"
The elevator shot upward at breakneck speed.
Down in the corridor, Ethan and Marcus—who had broken through the tactical blockade below with minor injuries—pursued them, tearing open the service stairwell door.
"Ethan, wait!" Clara called out, running up beside him, her heels discarded, her eyes blazing with determination. "The helipad is locked from the inside. He’s heading for his father’s extraction team!"
"I know," Ethan said, drawing a concealed sidearm from his shoulder holster. "Nolan Sterling is on that chopper. This ends today."
They raced up the stairs, twenty flights of concrete and steel, their boots pounding against the steps like war drums. By the time they kicked open the heavy roof access door, the deafening chop of helicopter blades was whipping hurricane-force winds across the rainy, slick rooftop.
A black executive helicopter hovered ten feet off the landing pad, its side door open. Julian was pushing a frantic Victoria up the loading ladder while a white-haired man with a silver cane—Nolan Sterling—stood inside the aircraft, holding out a hand to pull them in.
"Ethan!" Nolan screamed over the roar of the rotors, his voice full of insane, unhinged hatred. "You are just like your father! Weak! Driven by sentiment! You lost the moment you let a woman touch your heart!"
Ethan stepped out onto the open roof, rain soaking his hair and suit in seconds. He raised his weapon, lining up the front sight directly on the helicopter’s main rotor hub. "It wasn't sentiment that brought you down, Nolan," Ethan shouted above the storm. "It was your own greed!"
Suddenly, Victoria, realizing Julian was going to push her off the ladder to reduce weight as the chopper struggled in the high winds, clawed wildly at Julian’s face. "You lied to me!" she shrieked, driving her nails into his eyes.
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Julian screamed in pain, losing his grip on the ladder. Both of them slipped, falling backward onto the wet, slippery tarmac of the rooftop just as Ethan fired three precise armor-piercing rounds directly into the chopper’s hydraulic line.
Bright blue sparks erupted from the rotor assembly. The helicopter lurched violently, pitching sideways as smoke billowed from the engine housing. The pilot panicked, pulling hard on the collective stick to escape, leaving Nolan, Julian, and Victoria behind on the rain-swept roof as the crippled aircraft veered off into the dark sky, spinning out of control down toward the river below.
