Chapter 6 - The Traitor Unmasked
The kitchen of Rourke House was vast, smelling faintly of lemon cleaner and old wood.
The storm outside had reached its peak, casting jagged strokes of lightning across the stainless-steel counters and copper pots hanging from the ceiling.
Dominic and Mara slipped into the shadows near the pantry doors just as the service entrance clicked open.
A man in a bespoke charcoal suit stepped inside, holding a silenced pistol in one hand and a secure tablet in the other. Water dripped from the brim of his expensive fedora onto the tile floor.
Julian Vance looked entirely out of place among the industrial stoves and cutting boards.
“Clear the perimeter,” Julian hissed into his comms unit, his voice sharp and nervous. “Rourke should be down by now. Move in and secure the kids before the federal teams arrive.”
“There are no federal teams coming, Julian,” Dominic said.
The lawyer froze. He spun around, his pistol jerking upward, but before his finger could even tighten on the trigger, Mara moved with blinding speed.
She vaulted across the center island, kicked the weapon out of Julian’s hand with a vicious roundhouse strike, and slammed him against the stainless-steel refrigerator with a resounding crash.
Julian choked out a desperate gasp, his face turning pale as he looked into Dominic’s cold, lifeless eyes.
“Dominic...” Julian wheezed, his hands clawing at Mara’s grip on his lapels. “Thank God... the—the men outside, they ambushed me—they forced me to give them the codes—”
“Shut up, Julian,” Dominic said softly, walking slowly toward him like a executioner approaching the block. “You’ve spent ten years at my table. You held my children at their baptism. And you sold them to Volkov for a percentage of the shipping lanes.”
“I had no choice!” Julian sobbed, panic taking over his aristocratic veneer. “They would have killed me! Volkov owns half the judiciary in the tristate area!”
“And I own the ground beneath your feet,” Dominic replied.
He reached into his coat, pulled out his phone, and tapped the screen twice.
From the ceiling speakers throughout the kitchen, a recorded audio file began to play. It was Julian’s voice, crisp and clear, speaking over an encrypted satellite line to Viktor Volkov just three hours earlier:
“The security grid will be disabled at 3:00 a.m. Ensure the children are taken alive; Rourke must watch his empire burn from the inside out.”
Julian’s eyes dilated with sheer, unadulterated terror. “Where... how did you get that?”
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“Your phone has been mirrored since the day you started representing Volkov’s shell companies,” Mara said smoothly, releasing her grip and letting the lawyer slump against the stainless-steel doors like a broken marionette. “Some lawyers think encryption makes them gods. Good lawyers know that every digital lock has a master key.”
Before Julian could scramble for the door, the kitchen windows shattered inward in a shower of glass and rain.
