Chapter 75 - The Blackout on 85th Street
The blackout hit the mansion before the sound of the exploding glass even finished echoing.
The crystal chandelier overhead died instantly, plunging the three-story foyer and the grand drawing room into pitch-black darkness. Outside, the streetlights along East End Avenue flickered and died as Marcus’s crew cut the municipal grid transformer on 86th Street.
In the sudden, suffocating dark, muzzle flashes ripped through the night like strobe lights.
*CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!*
High-caliber rifle fire shredded the heavy plaster walls above the desk. Books, marble fragments, and carved molding rained down into the dark.
"Sarah! Down!" Clara screamed from the corner.
I didn't think. Instinct took over—the same raw survival reflex that kept me alive on the waterfront before Marcus ever took me in. I lunged to the left, tackling Sofia to the floor, rolling her under the heavy mahogany desk just as a burst of automatic fire chewed through the velvet curtains where Clara had been standing a second before.
"Mommy!" Sofia shrieked into the darkness.
"Clara’s okay, baby! Stay down!" I yelled over the deafening roar of gunfire.
Across the room, Mercer was firing blindly toward the shattered terrace doors. The orange muzzle flash of his Glock illuminated his terrified, sweating face for split seconds at a time. "Where are they?! Troopers! Return fire!"
A shadow detached itself from the darkness by the shattered terrace. A heavy, armored figure moved with terrifying speed and brutal economy.
A single shot rang out—a sharp, suppressed *thump*.
Mercer’s gun flew from his hand, accompanied by a wet, bone-crunching crack. Mercer screamed, clutching his shattered right wrist, collapsing against the marble fireplace.
"Governor Thomas Sterling," a voice barked through the dark. It wasn't Marcus. It was a younger, harder voice.
Julian Vance.
Julian had crossed forty blocks through the blackout, leading Marcus’s primary tactical strike team directly into the Governor’s fortified compound.
Emergency red backup lights suddenly flickered on along the baseboards, casting long, bloody shadows across the room.
Julian stood in the center of the drawing room, wearing black tactical gear over a stained prison undershirt. His face was streaked with soot and blood, an automatic carbine held tight against his shoulder. Behind him, four men in heavy body armor cleared the corners of the room with clinical precision, disarming the remaining state troopers who lay groaning on the floor.
Behind the desk, Governor Sterling was crawling on his hands and knees toward a hidden safe beneath the wainscoting, his fingernails clawing at the wallpaper.
Julian stepped forward, planting his heavy combat boot directly onto Sterling’s back, pinning the Governor of New York to the Persian rug like an insect.
"Stay down, Governor," Julian said coldly, resting the hot muzzle of his rifle against the nape of Sterling’s neck. "You move an inch, and I’ll give you the cardiac arrest you ordered for my brother."
"Julian!" Clara cried out, stumbling out from behind the heavy leather sofa, her face covered in white plaster dust.
Julian looked up, his hard, predatory face breaking for a single fraction of a second. "Clara. You're whole?"
"We’re alive," Clara breathed, tears cutting clean lines through the dust on her cheeks. "Sofia... Sarah has Sofia."
I crawled out from under the heavy desk, lifting Sofia into my arms. Sofia was sobbing, her little arms locked around my neck with bruising force, her face buried in my apron.
Pendelton was on his knees by the bookshelf, coughing from the smoke, his spectacles shattered, but he was breathing.
Julian’s eyes found mine. He lowered his rifle slightly, nodding once—a soldier acknowledging a commander on the field.
"Marcus was right about you, Sarah," Julian said, his chest heaving with exertion. "He said you wouldn't give them the ledger, even with a gun to your teeth."
"Where is he, Julian?" I demanded, my voice shaking with raw adrenaline. "Where is Marcus?"
Julian’s jaw tightened. The triumph in his eyes flickered out, replaced by a dark, terrible gravity.
"He’s at the old boiler works beneath Grand Central," Julian said quietly. "He took two rounds when we breached the sally port at Centre Street. He’s losing blood fast, Sarah. He refused the field medic until he saw Sofia."
My heart stopped.
"He’s bleeding?" Clara gasped, her hand flying to her throat. "Marcus is shot?"
"We have to move now," Julian barked, turning to his men. "State Police tactical units are already mobilizing from the midtown barracks. The blackout only bought us ten minutes before their auxiliary generators spin up. We take the service van through the park."
Julian looked down at Sterling, who was wheezing under his boot. Julian reached down, grabbed the Governor by his silk collar, and hauled him up until Sterling was face-to-face with Mercer.
"Mercer," Julian said, his voice dripping with venom. "Your Swiss account is gone. Your badges are gone. By dawn, the entire world is going to know what you buried in the river twenty years ago."
Julian turned back to us. "Move! Now!"
We ran through the shattered terrace into the freezing rain. The cold air hit my face like an open-handed slap, clearing the smoke from my lungs. A heavy black utility van was idling in the service alley, its doors flung wide.
Julian’s men threw us inside. Pendelton tumbled onto the metal floor, groaning as Clara helped him against the reinforced wall. I climbed in last, clutching Sofia tight to my chest, my waitress apron soaked through with rain, scotch, and my own blood.
May you like
The van’s rear doors slammed shut with an echoing, iron thud.
The engine roared to life, tires screaming against the wet asphalt as the driver hurled the heavy vehicle out of the alley and into the pitch-black streets of a darkened Manhattan.
