Chapter 19 - The Price of Freedom
The thunderous roar of the twelve-gauge slug drowned out the sound of the entire ocean.
The high-velocity round struck Arthur Sterling square in the right shoulder, spinning him around like a rag doll.
The momentum carried the billionaire over the slick, crumbling edge of the headland.
Arthur’s fingers clawed frantically at the wet grass, tearing up handfuls of mud and roots as he slipped.
"Julian!" Arthur screamed, his voice choked with blood and pure, unadulterated terror.
Julian dropped the rifle into the mud and sprinted forward, diving onto his stomach at the cliff's edge.
He reached down with both hands, catching Arthur by the wrist of his uninjured arm.
Arthur dangled three hundred feet above the churning, violent sea, the rocks below waiting like jagged teeth.
The ocean sprayed up into their faces, cold and smelling of salt and death.
"Hold on!" Julian grunted, his muscles straining violently as the earth began to crumble beneath his chest.
"Pull me up!" Arthur begged, his aristocratic mask completely dissolved into pathetic desperation.
"I have accounts... two hundred million in Singapore... it's all yours, Julian! Just pull me up!"
Maya crawled over through the mud, grabbing Julian’s belt with both hands to keep him from being dragged over.
"Julian, the ground is giving way!" Maya cried out, feeling the cliff edge cracking beneath their weight.
A massive chunk of turf broke loose, tumbling into the void below.
Julian looked down into the eyes of the man who had abandoned him, manipulated him, and tried to slaughter his wife.
"Where is Clara?" Julian asked, his voice dead and hollow above the wind.
Arthur looked up, blood dripping from his shattered shoulder into the sea.
"Where is she, Arthur?" Julian repeated, his grip tightening.
A grotesque, spiteful smile crept across Arthur’s dying face.
"Clara died five years ago in a private clinic in Zurich, you fool," Arthur wheezed.
"I disconnected the machines myself."
Julian’s eyes widened, a profound, soul-crushing silence falling over his expression.
"You killed her," Julian whispered.
"She was a liability," Arthur spit out, blood bubbling on his lips. "Just like you."
Julian looked at his father’s wrist in his hands.
He looked at the seventy-thousand-dollar Swiss watch strapped to the man's arm.
He looked at the emptiness of the Atlantic below.
"You're wrong, Arthur," Julian said softly.
"About what?" Arthur gasped, feeling the fingers around his wrist begin to loosen.
"I'm not like you," Julian whispered.
Julian didn't throw him. He didn't push him.
He simply let go.
Arthur’s scream was ripped away by the howling wind as he fell into the black, churning surf below.
A single massive wave surged over the rocks, swallowing the body of Arthur Sterling whole.
Then there was only the sea.
Julian collapsed backward onto the wet grass, pulling Maya into his arms as the rain poured down upon them.
They lay together in the mud, gasping for air, clutching each other like two shipwreck survivors on a deserted shore.
From the porch behind them, the sound of sirens began to wail in the distance.
Victoria Sterling sat huddled against the broken deck rail, staring into the dark with hollow, dead eyes.
Her empire was gone.
Her husband was dead.
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And the daughter-in-law she tried to drown held every single key to the kingdom.
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