Chapter 6 - The Trap
Before Marcus’s finger could twitch to give the order to fire, the harsh fluorescent lights of the vault suddenly flickered, hissed, and died.
Total darkness swallowed the room.
BANG!
A deafening roar echoed off the concrete walls, but it wasn't Marcus’s men firing—it was the heavy steel vault door slamming shut from the outside, operated by remote override.
“What the hell?!” Marcus cursed in the dark, stumbling back against the table. “Turn the emergency lights on! Kill him!”
Red backup strips along the floor ignited, casting an eerie, bloody glow across the concrete. But in that split second of confusion, I had already moved. I dropped low, drawing my pistol, and fired two rapid shots into the ceiling, shattering the last remaining light fixtures.
Chaos erupted. Gunfire chewed into the concrete pillars, sending sparks flying in all directions. Victor, stationed outside the security grid, began overriding the internal ventilation system, pumping a heavy dose of military-grade non-lethal knockout gas through the intake vents.
“Flank them! Find Moretti!” Marcus screamed, coughing as the sweet, heavy gas began to fill the vault.
I rolled behind a massive steel rack of safety deposit boxes, listening to the heavy thud of boots scrambling in the dark. One of Marcus’s enforcers lunged around the corner, his rifle raised, but I didn't hesitate—I stepped out, swept his legs, and brought the butt of my pistol down hard against his temple. He crumpled instantly, unconscious.
Two more guards rushed the aisle, coughing violently from the gas, and Victor—having forced a side maintenance hatch—burst in with three loyal men, cutting them down with precise, non-lethal leg shots.
Within two minutes, the gunfight was over.
Marcus stumbled back against the far wall of the vault, his face pale, his expensive suit stained with soot and sweat. The knockout gas was taking effect; his knees buckled, and he slid down the concrete wall until he hit the floor, clutching his side where a graze from a bullet had torn through his jacket.
I walked slowly across the room, my boots crunching on shattered glass and spent brass casings. I stopped directly in front of him, looking down like an executioner staring at a condemned rat.
Marcus looked up, spitting blood onto the floor, his eyes wide with a sudden, desperate terror.
“You... you knew I was going to move tonight,” he wheezed.
“I didn't need to know,” I said coldly, pressing the cold barrel of my pistol directly against his forehead. “Sofia told me.”
Marcus’s eyes widened further. “Sofia is dead!”
“Her words aren't,” I replied. “And neither is her family.”
At that exact moment, the side door of the maintenance hatch clicked open, and Elena stepped into the vault. She wasn't alone. In front of her, pushed by one of my guards, was a terrified young man with dark hair and a trembling lower lip—Leo Vance, Marcus’s nephew, the tech specialist who had vanished after Sofia’s murder.
Leo took one look at his uncle bleeding on the floor and burst into tears.
“Uncle Marcus, I’m sorry!” Leo sobbed, dropping to his knees. “I didn't want to do it! He made me! He said if I didn't hack the medical files and slip the poison into the kitchen supply, he’d kill my mother!”
Marcus glared at his nephew with pure hatred. “You pathetic little coward—”
“Shut up,” I barked, kicking Marcus’s hand away from his concealed ankle holster. I looked at Elena. She stood beside Leo, holding a small digital audio recorder in her hand.
“Everything Leo just said,” Elena said calmly, her amber eyes locking onto mine, “is backed up by the financial transfers from Marcus’s offshore accounts to Leo’s Swiss bank, along with the unedited security footage from the night my sister died. It’s all on this drive.”
She held out the drive. I took it, sliding it into my coat pocket.
Then I looked down at Marcus Vance. The man who had betrayed my trust, murdered my wife, and tried to murder my three-year-old son.
“You wanted my empire, Marcus?” I whispered, my voice chillingly soft. “You can have it. All of it. Every square foot of it.”
I lowered the pistol, stepping back.
May you like
“Victor. Take him and his nephew to the basement holding cells. Lock them in isolation. No food, no light, no visitors. Let them rot in the dark until I decide whether to feed them to the fishes in Lake Michigan or hand them over to the federal prosecutors who owe me favors.”
“With pleasure, Boss,” Victor grunted, hauling Marcus up by his collar as the traitor screamed curses into the subterranean air.
