Chapter 9 - The Wrath of the Matriarch
Julian hit the stone balcony with the kinetic force of a meteor.
The marble tiles cracked beneath his boots as he absorbed the impact in a combat roll, rising to his full height in less than a second.
His charcoal suit jacket was torn.
His face was streaked with soot and engine oil from the tunnel ambush he had clearly obliterated.
His eyes were burning with a demonic, primeval fury.
Sterling didn't even have time to turn his knife around.
Julian closed the distance in a single stride.
His left hand shot out like an iron clamp, locking around Sterling’s throat with enough force to crush the cartilage instantly.
Sterling’s feet left the ground.
His eyes bulged in absolute terror, the knife slipping from his useless fingers and clattering harmlessly against the stone.
“You dared,” Julian whispered.
His voice was terrifyingly low, carrying beneath the roar of the helicopter blades hovering overhead.
“You dared step into the sanctuary of my wife and child.”
Julian turned his body and slammed Sterling’s spine violently against the exterior stone balustrade.
The old billionaire gasped for air, his hands clawing uselessly at Julian’s forearm, which felt as unyielding as solid steel.
Behind Sterling, the empty air plummeted three hundred feet down into the jagged, boiling rocks of the ocean.
“Julian... please...” Sterling choked out, tears of agony streaming down his face. “Spare... spare me...”
Julian didn't answer.
Instead, he turned his head and looked at me.
I stood there, clutching our son tightly to my chest, my breathing ragged, my heart pounding against my ribs.
Julian’s eyes were asking an unspoken question.
He was the emperor who held the power of life and death, but in this moment, he was deferring the executioner’s axe to the woman who had suffered.
I stepped forward, looking down at Arthur Sterling.
I saw the man who had enabled Genevieve’s arrogance.
I saw the greed, the entitlement, the sociopathic disregard for human life that had almost murdered my baby before he could take his first breath.
“Sophia...” Sterling gasped, his eyes wide with pleading terror. “Mercy... have mercy...”
“Mercy is for human beings, Mr. Sterling,” I said, my voice steady, cold, and entirely devoid of fear.
“Not for jackals who hunt infants in their cribs.”
I looked at Julian.
“Take his hands off our home.”
Julian didn't hesitate.
He didn't throw Sterling over the edge—that would have been too quick, too clean an end for a man who had brought war to our doorstep.
Instead, Julian shifted his grip, twisted Sterling’s shoulder until a sickening POP echoed across the balcony, and slammed him face-down onto the cracked tiles.
Three elite tactical operatives descended from the hovering helicopter via fast-ropes, landing instantly on the balcony with assault rifles raised.
“Restrain him,” Julian ordered, stepping away from the groaning, broken figure of Arthur Sterling.
“Transfer him to the highest security isolation ward at the naval penitentiary. Charge him with domestic terrorism, attempted murder of a federal asset’s family, and high treason.”
“He will never see sunlight again.”
“Understood, Sir!” the lead operative barked, dragging Sterling away like a slaughtered hog.
Julian turned back to me.
The terrifying predator disappeared in the span of a single breath.
He rushed forward, wrapping both arms around me and our son, pulling us into his chest with a desperate, trembling intensity.
“Sophia... Marcus...” he breathed, his voice breaking into raw sobs as he buried his face into the curve of my neck.
“Are you hurt? Did he touch you? Did he touch our boy?”
“We are safe, Julian,” I whispered, wrapping one arm around his broad neck, feeling his tears hot against my collarbone.
“We are safe because you came.”
“I will always come for you,” Julian vowed, kissing my lips, my cheeks, my forehead, his hands gently cradling Marcus’s tiny back.
“I burned down their world to build you a paradise. And I will burn down the entire earth before I let anyone hurt you again.”
In that moment, standing on the wind-swept balcony above the ocean, with our child safe between us and our enemies annihilated, I knew that the poor orphan girl who had been shoved down the stairs was gone forever.
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I was Sophia Blackwood.
And together with my husband, we were entirely invincible.
