Chapter 17 - Showdown on Floor 40Julian tightened his grip around Maya's neck, her breath catching in her throat as she clawed at his forearm.
"You ruined everything!" Julian spat, his face contorted in pure, unadulterated hatred. "Thirty years of building this family! Father left us nothing—nothing! I built the syndicate! I bought the police, the judges, the city council! And you burned it down in twenty-four hours for her!"
"You didn't build a family, Julian," Derrick replied, taking another step closer. He was twenty feet away now. "You built a cage. You kept father's debts hanging over my head, you forced me into your dirty money laundering, and when I walked away, you tried to murder an innocent woman to prove you still owned me."
"I do own you!" Julian roared. "You think because you put on a clean suit and invested in architectural blueprints that you're different from me?! You're a Sterling! You have the same blood, the same darkness, the same hands!"
"No," Derrick said, his eyes locking onto Julian's with terrifying intensity. "I learned how to stop."
Maya looked at Derrick through the driving rain. Despite the gun pointed at her, despite the lethal drop behind her, she saw no fear in Derrick's eyes—only an absolute, unwavering promise.
Now, his eyes signaled to her. A fraction of a second's glance down toward Julian's wounded shoulder.
Maya didn't hesitate. With every ounce of strength remaining in her body, she drove her sharp elbow straight backward into Julian's shattered shoulder joint.
Julian let out a gut-wrenching scream of agony, his grip slackening instantly as his left arm collapsed. He stumbled backward, his gun hand swinging wildly.
In that split second, Derrick closed the twenty-foot distance like a panther.
He drove his shoulder directly into Julian's chest, knocking him away from Maya. Maya tumbled safely to the concrete slab near the structural pillar, coughing, as Derrick and Julian crashed into the wet, exposed floor.
The pistol discharged with a deafening report—BANG!—the bullet ricocheting off the steel girder into the night sky.
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Derrick grabbed Julian's wrist, driving his palm into the joint until the weapon slipped from his fingers and skittered off the edge of the building, plummeting forty stories into the dark abyss below.
Julian snarled, using his remaining strength to throw a vicious right hook that caught Derrick across the jaw. Derrick took the blow, unyielding, and slammed a devastating forearm into Julian's ribs, pinning his brother down onto the rain-soaked concrete.
