Chapter 8 - The Skyward Serpent
"She isn't leaving this city," Arthur said, rising to his feet, every trace of exhaustion instantly burned away by adrenaline.
"Arthur, you're bleeding out from your ribs," Thorne warned, grabbing his arm to steady him.
"I don't care," Arthur snarled, wrenching his arm free. "She killed my father, she poisoned my grandmother, and she used me."
"This is federal jurisdiction now, Hawthorne!" Thorne shouted as he strode toward the doors.
"The helicopter on that roof belongs to Hawthorne Maritime, Agent Thorne," Arthur countered without stopping. "And the pilot answers to me."
Arthur pulled his phone from his pocket, dialing the direct frequency of the corporate flight crew.
"Captain Miller, this is Arthur Hawthorne," he spoke into the phone with icy command.
"Mr. Hawthorne? We have an armed woman approaching the pad demanding takeoff!" Miller’s panicked voice crackled.
"Lock the cockpit doors and purge the turbine fuel line immediately!" Arthur ordered.
"I can't, sir! She has a detonator—" Miller's sentence was cut short by the sharp sound of gunfire over the receiver.
The line went dead with a hiss of static.
"She just executed my pilot," Arthur said, looking back at Thorne with eyes void of humanity.
Thorne didn't argue anymore; she saw the transformation in the young billionaire.
The gentle, grieving heir was gone, burned away in the furnace of betrayal, replaced by something ancient and ruthless.
"We take my vehicle," Thorne said, unholstering a spare sidearm from her tactical bag and handing it to Arthur. "Do you know how to use this?"
Arthur took the heavy Glock, racked the slide with a practiced snap, and flicked the safety off.
"My father taught me how to shoot before I could drive," Arthur stated coldly.
They sprinted back to the SUV, the vehicle roaring to life as they tore out of the estate grounds for the second time that night.
The storm over Manhattan had intensified into a raging squall, lightning cracking across the sky like fractured glass.
As they approached the Hawthorne International tower, Arthur looked up through the windshield.
Eighty stories above, the twin strobe lights of the corporate Sikorsky helicopter were already spinning through the driving rain.
"She bypassed the fuel purge," Thorne observed, grinding her teeth as she parked on the sidewalk.
"There's an emergency maintenance elevator on the northern facade," Arthur directed, loading extra rounds into his magazine. "It goes straight to the pad."
They entered the building through the freight docks, bypassing the evacuated lobby completely.
The exterior maintenance elevator was an open-cage metal hoist, rattling violently as it climbed the outside of the glass tower.
Rain lashed against their faces, the wind howling around them as the city lights blurred into a sea of neon below.
As the hoist reached the eightieth floor, the roar of the helicopter’s twin turbines became deafening.
Arthur kicked the cage door open, stepping out onto the wet, gale-swept rooftop helipad.
The massive helicopter was already hovering two feet off the wet concrete, its landing skids trembling in the wind.
Inside the cockpit, illuminated by the green glow of the avionics, was Kaelen Cross.
Her face was covered in blood, but her eyes were fixed on the navigation displays as she pulled the collective pitch lever upward.
"Cover me!" Arthur yelled over the screaming wind and rotor wash.
Thorne dropped to one knee, firing four controlled shots through the cockpit's reinforced canopy.
The glass spiderwebbed with white fractures, forcing Kaelen to duck and throwing the aircraft into a violent yaw.
The tail rotor swung wildly, clipping the perimeter communication antenna with a shower of orange sparks.
The helicopter dropped down, its heavy steel skids slamming back onto the helipad with bone-jarring force.
Arthur sprinted directly into the blinding spray of rain and aviation exhaust.
Kaelen kicked the shattered cockpit door open, leveling a submachine gun directly at his chest.
Arthur didn't dive for cover.
He raised his weapon, his gaze locking onto the scarred, aging face of the woman who had pretended to be his soulmate.
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"Goodbye, Isabella," Arthur whispered into the storm.
He pulled the trigger three times.
