Chapter 19 - The Dawn of War
The heavy oak doors of the monastery creaked shut behind them as Roman and Sadi stepped out into the freezing midnight mist.
Silas was waiting beside the Maybach, his hand instantly dropping from his concealed weapon when he saw them walking out unharmed. "Boss? How did it go?"
"The Council stood down," Roman answered, his voice stripped of triumph, heavy with an encroaching storm. "Get us back to the tower. Alert our intelligence team in London and Singapore immediately."
Silas opened the door, sensing the dark shift in the air. "Who are we hunting?"
"Julian Sterling," Sadi whispered, stepping into the back seat, her hands clutched tightly in her lap.
As the car accelerated into the night, cutting through the fog-shrouded mountain roads, Roman pulled Sadi close to his side. His warmth surrounded her, but for the first time since the night Marcus had been exiled, a cold knot of dread twisted in her stomach.
Julian Sterling.
She had only heard the name spoken in fearful whispers during her miserable two years with Marcus. Marcus had always lived in terror of his older brother—a ruthless, psychopathic mercenary who had vanished into the shadows of international contract warfare after nearly killing a man in his youth. The Sterling family had paid millions to bury Julian’s records, erasing his name from society registers to protect Marcus’s public image.
Now, Julian had returned. Not with empty corporate threats, but with half a billion dollars in leverage and an army of hardened soldiers who answered to no syndicate, no government, and no law.
"He won't touch you, Sadi," Roman said, his voice a low, terrifying vow against her ear. "I will burn every ship that leaves the Atlantic before I let a Sterling breathe your air again."
"Julian isn't Marcus, Roman," Sadi said, looking out the tinted window as the city skyline rose in the distance like a fortress of glass and steel. "Marcus was a coward who hid behind lawyers and expensive shoes. Julian is a butcher who kills because he enjoys the sound of breaking bones."
"Then he will find out that Vance Tower isn't made of glass," Roman answered, his jaw set like iron.
Thirty minutes later, the Maybach pulled into the private subterranean garage beneath Vance Tower. The security protocols had already shifted to highest alert; armored guards flanked every corridor, assault rifles slung across their chests, surveillance drones humming in tight patterns above the courtyard.
They took the private elevator directly to the penthouse.
The doors chimed and slid open onto the eighty-second floor.
The penthouse was pitch black.
Roman’s hand immediately shot out, pushing Sadi behind his back as he reached for the firearm tucked in his waistband. "Silas," he murmured through his earpiece. "Did the power fail?"
Static hissed in the earpiece. Then silence.
The floor-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking the glittering city were intact, but the city lights seemed distant, swallowed by an unnatural stillness.
In the center of the dark living room, illuminated only by the cold moonlight cutting across the marble floor, sat Roman’s executive leather chair.
It had been dragged from his study.
Sitting in the chair was a man in dark tactical fatigues, his boots resting casually on the marble coffee table. Beside his feet lay a severed communications cable and the bloody radio transponder belonging to Roman’s chief perimeter guard.
The man stood up slowly. He was taller than Marcus, broader, with a jagged scar running from his left temple down to his collarbone. In his right hand, he held a glass of Roman’s vintage bourbon, swirling the amber liquid lazily.
"Two years," the man said, his voice a deep, gravelly baritone that echoed through the vast penthouse like thunder. "My little brother gets kicked out of his own city by a mafia prince, and nobody thought to invite me to the funeral."
Roman raised his gun, the laser sight centering directly between the man's eyes.
"Julian Sterling," Roman said, his voice dripping with venom. "You have three seconds to get on your knees before I paint this glass with your brains."
Julian didn't blink. He took a slow sip of the bourbon, his lips curling into a feral, wolfish grin that made Marcus’s cruelty look like child's play.
"Shoot me, Vance," Julian whispered, tilting his head toward the massive glass window behind him. "And you’ll never find the detonators under the four support pillars of this building."
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Julian’s dark, predatory eyes shifted past Roman, locking directly onto Sadi, who stood frozen in the moonlight, her heart pounding against her ribs like a war drum.
"Hello, little sister-in-law," Julian purred, tapping a small black remote control against the rim of his glass. "I hear you think you're the queen of this city now. Let's see if your kingdom can survive the night."
