Chapter 4: Ambush on Dead Man’s Curve

Julian reacted with feline swiftness. In three silent strides, he snatched the insurance folders off the bed, shoved them into Harold’s briefcase, snapped the brass latches shut, and slipped through the adjoining door just as the brass room key turned in the outside lock.

The door swung open with a wet bang. Harold stood in the doorway, his Italian wool coat drenched in rainwater, his eyes bloodshot and frantic.

“Pack your things,” Harold commanded, not bothering to look around the room. “The highway department cleared a single lane through Devil’s Chasm. We leave right now.”

“Harold, it’s four in the morning,” Elena said, forcing a weary, docile tone as she picked up her handbag. “The fog is so thick you can barely see twenty feet.”

“I don’t care,” Harold snapped, grabbing the briefcase from the dresser. “The Portland group won’t wait. Get in the car.”

Ten minutes later, the black Escalade was climbing the winding, treacherous ascent toward the summit of coastal pass. The storm had reduced to a freezing drizzle, but a thick, milky fog clung to the cliffs, obscuring the sheer five-hundred-foot drops into the rocky ocean below.

Inside the SUV, the atmosphere was suffocating. Elena sat in the backseat directly behind the driver’s seat. Julian sat on her right, his body tense, his muscles primed like a coiled spring.

As the SUV crested the ridge, a yellow warning sign loomed through the fog: DEAD MAN’S CURVE — 8% DOWNHILL GRADE — 15 MPH.

Harold’s knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. Elena noticed his right foot pressing repeatedly down on the brake pedal.

“What the hell?” Harold muttered, his voice artificially raised with theatrical panic. “The brakes… the pedal is going straight to the floor!”

He pumped the pedal again, but Elena knew the mechanic’s note by heart: the bleeder valve was designed to purge all hydraulic pressure under prolonged downhill braking.

“Harold, slow down!” Elena cried, playing her part.

“I can’t!” Harold yelled. He reached down, quietly clicking his seatbelt release while subtly aiming the vehicle’s right side toward a low dirt turnout—a spot where a driver could leap out before the car tumbled over the rusted guardrails. “The brakes are completely gone! We’re going over!”

“Not today, Dad,” a cold voice cut through the cabin.

Before Harold could open his door, Julian lunged forward between the front bucket seats. With brutal military precision, Julian locked his left arm around Harold’s throat, yanking him back hard against the headrest, while his right hand grabbed the gear selector and violently slammed the transmission into low gear.

The engine screamed at six thousand RPM as the transmission locked up, instantly dropping the SUV’s speed from sixty miles per hour to thirty.

“You ungrateful bastard!” Harold choked out, clawing at Julian’s arm.

“Elena, brace yourself!” Julian roared, leaning over the center console to grab the steering wheel with both hands.

Instead of fighting the skid toward the edge of the cliff, Julian wrenched the wheel hard to the left, aiming the Cadillac’s reinforced front bumper straight into the solid rock embankment on the mountain side.

The impact was deafening. Metal crumpled, glass shattered, and the front airbags deployed with explosive force, filling the cabin with white powder and smoke. The heavy SUV ground against the rocky cliffside before coming to a complete, smoking halt on the asphalt—just ten feet shy of the wooden drop-off.

Silence descended over the mountain pass, broken only by the hissing radiator.

In the front seat, Harold shook the airbag off his face, his forehead bleeding from a small cut. His mask of respectable billionaire prestige was completely gone, replaced by the rabid, snarling fury of a cornered beast.

Harold reached into his inner coat pocket and whipped out a snub-nosed .38 revolver, cocking the hammer with a sickening metallic click and pointing the barrel straight at Elena’s forehead.

“You think you’re clever?” Harold snarled, his spit flying across the broken glass. “I built this empire! Neither of you is leaving this mountain alive!”