Chapter 35 - The shadow of the eclipse
The twin-engine tactical helicopter cut through the black storm clouds three thousand feet above the raging Atlantic. Below them, through the torrential rain, the *Leviathan* sliced through the white-capped waves like an iron leviathan.
Inside the cabin, Lorenzo checked the straps on Sophie’s tactical harness. She wore a Kevlar vest over her clothes, her face set in grim determination. Beside them sat Donna Rossi, holding an automatic shotgun with the quiet resolve of an empress going to war.
"Once we fast-rope onto the helipad, there is no extraction," Lorenzo said into Sophie’s headset. "Vance’s mercenaries have surface-to-air stingers on the aft deck. Our bird has to bug out the second our boots hit the steel."
"I'm ready, Lorenzo," Sophie said, her hand resting firmly against his armored chest. "He took my childhood. He tried to take my life. I won't let him take this city."
Lorenzo leaned down and pressed a fierce, lingering kiss against her lips—a silent vow sealed in the face of death. "Stick to my shadow. Nothing touches you while I draw breath."
The green jump light flashed in the cabin. The side door slid open to howling gale-force winds and freezing spray.
"Go! Go! Go!"
Lorenzo and Sophie descended the fast-rope together, hitting the slick metal helipad of the *Leviathan* with jarring force. Lorenzo cut their lines instantly, his weapon raised, dropping two sentries before the alarm sirens began to wail across the ship.
Red hazard lights bathed the superstructure in apocalyptic crimson. The voice of Jonathan Clark boomed over the ship's PA system:
"Welcome home, Sophie! Come to the observation deck! Let us watch the new dawn together!"
Lorenzo kicked through the bridge bulkhead, clearing room after room with brutal efficiency. Blood stained the steel grates. Mercenaries fell in heaps under the combined fire of Lorenzo and his elite strike team.
Finally, they breached the heavy vault doors of the grand observation deck.
Sitting in a massive leather armchair at the center of the panoramic glass deck was Victor Vance. But the billionaire wasn't breathing. A syringe of golden liquid sat empty on the table beside him; his body had convulsed into a twisted, lifeless statue of calcified bone. His body had rejected the serum.
Standing by the master console, holding the aerosol release lever, was Dr. Jonathan Clark.
His severed wrist was roughly bandaged, his white coat covered in grease and soot. On the digital screen behind him, the coastal coordinates for the city’s water reservoir were locked in. The launch timer showed three minutes.
"You're too late, Lorenzo," Jonathan whispered, his eyes wild with complete madness. "Vance is dead. The Consortium failed. But my sequence... my life’s work... will blanket the eastern seaboard! Those who survive will be the new gods!"
Lorenzo didn't speak. He stepped forward, raising his gun.
"Drop it, Lorenzo!" a voice suddenly commanded from behind them.
Lorenzo froze.
The cold steel barrel of a revolver pressed directly against the base of Lorenzo’s skull.
Sophie gasped in pure, paralyzing horror.
Standing behind Lorenzo, holding the gun with steady, experienced hands, was not an Apex soldier. It was not a Vance mercenary.
It was Donna Rossi.
Lorenzo did not turn around. His entire body turned to stone. "Mother...?"
Donna Rossi’s voice was completely devoid of warmth, stripped of the frail grandmother persona she had carried for three years. Her eyes were as cold and sharp as obsidian.
"Step away from the console, Lorenzo," Donna Rossi said softly, her finger tightening against the trigger. "Jonathan was never working for Victor Vance. Jonathan was working for me. Who do you think financed his research thirty years ago before your father died?"
Sophie stumbled back against the railing, her breath catching in her throat, the world spinning into complete madness. "You... you were the patron?"
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Donna Rossi smiled a faint, chilling smile in the crimson light of the ship. "The Rossi family didn't survive five centuries by relying on guns and extortion, my dear. We survived because we controlled life and death. Now, Sophie... be a good daughter, and step into the extraction tube."
Behind them, the master timer hit sixty seconds.
