Chapter 8 - THE CONFRONTATION
Deep underground, the heavy mechanical locks inside the steel door clanked open with a thunderous echo.
Briggs shoved the steel door open with all his strength.
Ethan stepped out into the stone corridor, holding his grandfather's cassette tape and the red folder containing the Paris police reports.
"Briggs, secure the main lobby," Ethan ordered as they sprinted up the spiral stairs. "Vance, stay behind us."
They reached the top of the stairs, bursting into the main hallway of the estate just as Julian's personal bodyguards were trying to guide Nora and Lily toward the front entrance.
"Ethan!" Nora cried out.
Julian turned around in absolute shock, dropping his glass of scotch onto the marble floor. It shattered into a dozen pieces.
"How... how did you get out?" Julian stammered, backing away toward the grand staircase.
Ethan didn't answer. He walked toward his uncle with a terrifying, unyielding speed.
Julian pulled a small silver pistol from inside his tailored jacket, pointing it directly at Ethan's chest. "Stay back! Don't come any closer, Ethan! I built this company with your father! I won't let a thirty-four-year-old boy strip me of everything I earned!"
Briggs instantly drew his sidearm, pointing it at Julian's head. "Drop the weapon, Julian!"
The remaining house guards—seeing that Ethan was alive and that Julian had drawn a gun—immediately switched sides, raising their weapons toward Julian and his two private bodyguards.
Julian was completely surrounded in the center of the grand foyer.
"It's over, Julian," Ethan said, stopping ten feet away from the barrel of his uncle's gun. He didn't even blink as he stared down the barrel.
"You don't have the stomach to kill me, Ethan," Julian sneered, his hand shaking slightly on the trigger. "You're too soft."
"I don't need to kill you," Ethan replied, lifting the red folder in his hand. "I have the original forensic reports from Paris. I have grandfather's recorded confession. And I have Arthur Vance standing right behind me, ready to testify in federal court."
Julian looked past Ethan's shoulder. Arthur Vance stepped into the foyer, holding his wooden cane, looking at Julian with icy satisfaction.
Julian's hand trembled violently. He looked around the grand ballroom, at the shattered glass on the floor, at his guards who had abandoned him, and finally at the little girl standing safely behind Nora.
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"A three-year-old..." Julian whispered, his voice cracking into a pathetic, hollow laugh. "My entire life's work... undone by a servant's child."
Briggs stepped forward, kicked the pistol out of Julian's hand as his knees gave out, and slammed him face-down onto the marble floor, pulling his arms behind his back to apply heavy steel handcuffs.
