Chapter 6
Z
The sight of my twenty-two-year-old sister, Lily, trapped inside that black armored vehicle forty floors below made the blood in my veins run instantly cold. My breath caught in my throat, a suffocating, paralyzing horror seizing my chest. Lily had nothing to do with any of this. She was a senior in college, a quiet art student who had never harmed a soul in her life.
"You monster," I breathed into the phone, my knuckles turning white as I gripped the phone so hard the glass threatened to crack. "She has nothing to do with this!"
"She has everything to do with this, Clara," Victor Vance replied, his voice dripping with smooth, sociopathic composure. "In the high-stakes world of risk management, everything is a trade. You threatened my family’s fortune, my nephew's freedom, and my corporate empire. Did you really think a man of my stature wouldn't secure an insurance policy?"
"If you touch a single hair on her head—"
"You will what?" Victor interrupted with a soft, patronizing laugh. "Expose me to the board? Hand your tablet to the police? Go ahead, Clara. Slide those frosted glass doors open right now and present your little report. The second your lips open to utter my name, my men will inject your sister with a compound that will make her heart stop within ninety seconds. By the time the ambulance arrives at the curb, she will be dead of an 'undiagnosed congenital cardiac failure.'"
My heart pounded against my ribs like a sledgehammer. My analyst brain, always so sharp and calculated, momentarily short-circuited under the sheer weight of primal terror. I looked through the frosted glass doors of the boardroom. Inside, I could see the silhouettes of Vanguard’s Chairman of the Board, the Chief Legal Officer, and senior board members taking their seats around the massive conference table, waiting for the 2:00 PM briefing to begin.
"Clock is ticking, Clara," Victor purred into the speaker. "Four minutes and thirty seconds. Walk out of the building, step into my SUV, hand over the tablet, and sign the affidavit confessing that you fabricated the audit log out of personal spite against Julian. Do that, and Lily walks away unharmed with a two-million-dollar trust fund. Refuse... and you can bury your sister by the end of the week."
The line went dead.
I stood frozen in the middle of the quiet corridor, my mind racing at a terrifying speed. I took a deep, shaky breath, forcing the blind panic down into the depths of my stomach. Panic was an emotion. Panic was a liability. I needed strategy.
I quickly tapped my phone screen, opening an encrypted direct channel to Marcus.
"Clara," Marcus answered instantly, his tone sharp. "I’m in the parking garage with federal agents. We’re preparing to move upstairs to take Harrison into custody—"
"Marcus, stop!" I whispered urgently, ducking into a private phone booth in the hallway. "Victor Vance has Lily. They pulled her off her campus. She’s being held in a black armored SUV directly outside the front main entrance."
A heavy, dangerous pause hung on the line. I heard Marcus inhale sharply.
"What are his demands?" Marcus asked, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp, tactical calm.
"He wants me to bring the tablet down, sign a confession taking the fall for the Meridian embezzlement, and destroy all the evidence," I said, my voice trembling despite my best efforts. "He threatened to kill her if I present to the board."
"Listen to me very carefully, Clara," Marcus said, his tone authoritative and cold as ice. "Do not go down there alone. Victor Vance has no intention of letting you or your sister walk away. If you sign that confession, you eliminate your leverage, and both you and Lily become loose ends."
"I can't risk her life, Marcus!" I choked out, a tear finally spilling over my eyelashes. "He has men in the car with her!"
"I know how Victor operates," Marcus countered firmly. "He uses physical intimidation to force compliance because he knows he’s trapped. But what Victor doesn't know is that my private security firm specializes in tactical extraction. I have a tactical unit stationed two blocks away. Give me three minutes."
"Three minutes?" I echoed, looking down at my watch. The timer was down to three minutes and fifteen seconds. "Marcus, if they spot your men—"
"They won't," Marcus interrupted. "The black SUV parked outside is a Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows, plate number foreign or unregistered, correct?"
"Yes," I confirmed, checking through the window. "License plate zero-nine-eight-delta."
"My team has a signal jammer unit," Marcus said quickly. "The moment my lead operative activates the jammer, the cellular link between Victor's phone and the men inside that SUV will be severed. The guards in the car won't receive the order to execute or move until they re-establish local comms. But I need you to create a distraction at the front lobby to draw Victor's personal attention away from the vehicle."
"How?" I asked.
"Walk out the front doors as if you're surrendering," Marcus instructed. "Keep Victor talking face-to-face on the curb. Buy my team forty seconds to neutralize the driver and extract Lily from the rear passenger side."
"And what about the board meeting?" I asked, looking back at the frosted glass doors where the board members were getting restless.
"Leave your tablet on the boardroom podium right now," Marcus ordered. "I have a remote override sequence configured. Once you step into the elevator, my team will trigger the tablet to automatically cast the full evidentiary presentation and Julian’s confession onto the giant boardroom screens in front of the entire executive panel. Harrison Sterling won't be able to stop it."
A cold, fierce determination surged through my chest, burning away the last remnants of my fear.
"Understood," I said.
I walked back to the boardroom doors, pushed them open quietly, and stepped inside. The entire board of directors turned to look at me. Harrison, who was standing by the podium looking like a ghost, gasped when he saw me walk up.
Without saying a single word, I placed my glowing tablet directly onto the central digital lectern, connected the master display cable, and tapped the screen once to initiate the forty-second countdown timer.
"Clara? What is the meaning of this?" Vanguard’s Chairman demanded, rising from his chair. "Where is the quarterly compliance report?"
I looked at the Chairman, then turned my gaze to Harrison Sterling, whose eyes were wide with pure, unadulterated horror.
"The compliance report is uploading right now, Mr. Chairman," I said softly, stepping back from the podium. "And I suggest you all pay very close attention to Chapter One."
Before anyone could stop me, I turned on my heel, walked out of the boardroom, and pressed the call button for the executive express elevator.
May you like
As the steel doors slid shut, taking me down forty floors toward the dangerous confrontation waiting on the street below, I pulled out my phone and dialed Victor Vance's private number.
"I’m coming down, Victor," I said into the receiver as the floor numbers flashed rapidly on the digital display. "Get your pen ready."
