Chapter 49 - Cold Harbor Reckoning
Eleanor turned, her eyes wide with a manic, sleepless fury. She looked at me not as a mother looks at a child, but as an aristocrat looks at a tenant who refused to pay rent.
"I gave you life, June," she hissed, raising the pistol toward my chest. "I shielded you from Arthur's worst instincts. I sat by your hospital bed and held your hand while you wheezed like a dying dog, and you repaid me by delivering our family to the federal marshals!"
"You didn't hold my hand," I said, walking slowly toward her, ignoring the barrel pointed at my heart. "You set a cold cup of coffee on my bedside table and told me that if I pressed charges against Claire, you would ensure I never saw a penny from my trust. You cared more about the appearance of a clean pedigree than the fact that your favorite daughter almost broke my spine."
"Appearance is all that exists!" Eleanor screamed, her voice cracking over the hiss of rain on embers. "Without the name, we are nothing! You are nothing!"
"I am June," I said. "And the Holloway name died five minutes ago in Zurich."
She pulled the trigger.
May you like
The hammer fell on an empty chamber. The slide locked back. Her mercenaries had cleared the chamber and taken the spare magazines before abandoning her on the mountain.
Eleanor stared at the weapon in disbelief, her hands trembling so violently that the paper coffee cup slipped from her fingers, splashing dark, bitter liquid onto the pristine white toe of her leather boots.
