Chapter 8 - THE SHATTERED GLASS
Camilla’s screech shattered the refined ambient noise of the balcony. Victor Dupont’s head snapped up from the main floor, his eyes narrowing as he finally connected the dots.
"Sophie Dubois!" Dupont shouted, pulling a silenced sidearm from beneath his tuxedo jacket and lunging up the marble stairs.
"Camilla, you endless fool," I spat. Before she could react, I grabbed the heavy glass champagne tower beside the stair railing and shoved it with all my strength.
Hundreds of crystal glasses crashed down the stairs, showering Dupont and his security team in a cascade of shattered glass and foaming wine. Guests screamed, scattering in horror as chaos erupted through the Grand Palais.
"Alessandro!" I cried out, sprinting down the grand upper corridor toward the executive suites.
The heavy double doors of the master server room burst open, and Alessandro appeared, holding a encrypted flash drive in his hand. "I have the ledger files! Move!"
Dupont and two armed guards breached the top of the stairs, firing silenced rounds into the hallway. Plaster shattered off the walls near my head. Alessandro grabbed my hand, pulling me into the executive suite and slamming the heavy oak door shut, throwing the deadbolt.
"They have the perimeter covered," Alessandro said, checking his weapon. "We can't go back down to the main floor."
"The glass dome!" I said, looking up at the soaring steel-and-glass roof of the Grand Palais. "There's a service catwalk used for lighting maintenance!"
Alessandro looked at the high ceiling, then at me, a proud, ferocious smile spreading across his lips. "You never cease to amaze me, Sophie."
He fired three rounds into the lock of a maintenance ladder door in the corner of the room. We scrambled up the vertical iron rungs, emerging onto the narrow steel catwalk directly beneath the massive glass roof of Paris. Below us, the panicked crowd looked like ants, and the alarm sirens of the Grand Palais echoed through the cavernous space.
Behind us, the maintenance door was kicked open. Victor Dupont stepped onto the catwalk, his gun leveled at Alessandro’s chest.
"End of the line, Moretti," Dupont growled, his face twisted in rage. "Give me the drive and the girl, or I drop you both fifty meters to the marble floor."
Alessandro stepped in front of me, his expression completely cool, staring down the barrel of Dupont's gun. "You made a mistake, Dupont. You thought this was about money."
"It’s always about money!" Dupont shouted.
"No," Alessandro said softly. "It’s about family."
Before Dupont could pull the trigger, the massive glass roof above us shattered inward as a sleek black tactical helicopter hovered directly over the Grand Palais. A steel cable dropped through the broken glass, and Gianni, hanging from the chopper's harness, opened fire with a high-caliber submachine gun.
Dupont was thrown backward by the force of the rounds, collapsing onto the catwalk.
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Alessandro grabbed the steel cable harness, wrapped his arm around my waist, and pulled me tight against his chest. "Hold on to me, Sophie! Don't let go!"
I wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my face into his shoulder as the winch pulled us up into the cold night air, flying high above the illuminated Eiffel Tower and the sparkling city of Paris, leaving the burning wreckage of Black Star Holdings below.
