Chapter 9 - The Betrayal.Ethan sat at the steel desk, staring at the encrypted satellite phone.
He punched in a thirteen-digit number he had committed to memory years ago.
The line rang twice before a gravelly, tired voice answered.
"The ghosts are walking early tonight," the voice said, an old operational challenge code.
"The marble is bleeding," Ethan replied, completing the countersign.
"Ethan," the man sighed heavily.
"I heard about the fireworks at your estate in Greenwich."
"Victoria has declared war, Arthur," Ethan stated flatly.
Arthur Vance was a retired CIA director and the man who had helped Ethan purge his company of its criminal elements five years ago.
"She sent Marcus and a kill team," Ethan continued.
"I need extraction for three people, off the grid, preferably to a non-extradition country."
There was a long, excruciating pause on the other end of the line.
"Three people?" Arthur asked cautiously.
"Myself, the woman I love, and my daughter," Ethan confessed, holding nothing back.
Arthur exhaled sharply.
"That complicates things, Ethan."
"The syndicate has already put a ten-million-dollar bounty on your head, and they added five million for the girl."
Ethan’s blood ran completely cold.
"How do they know about Lily?" he demanded.
"Victoria found the birth certificate in the maid's belongings while you were shooting up your own parlor," Arthur revealed.
"She knows the child is the true heir to the Caldwell empire."
"She wants the bloodline erased so she can claim your assets when you die."
Ethan gripped the phone tightly, a lethal fury radiating from his eyes.
"I need a chopper at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in exactly one hour," Ethan demanded.
"I can do that," Arthur replied, though his voice lacked its usual commanding certainty.
"Dock 4, sixty minutes."
"Don't be late, Ethan."
The line went dead.
Ethan stood up and began loading magazines with armor-piercing rounds from the safehouse armory.
"We leave in ten minutes," he told Rosa, tossing her a lightweight Kevlar vest.
Rosa strapped it on, her heart hammering wildly against her ribs.
Fifty miles away, in a glass-walled penthouse overlooking Manhattan, Arthur Vance hung up a burner phone.
He turned around to face Victoria Haynes, who was elegantly sipping a glass of champagne on his leather sofa.
"He's heading to the Navy Yard," Arthur said, his eyes filled with shame.
Victoria smiled, a cold, predatory expression that didn't reach her eyes.
May you like
"Excellent," she purred, pulling a suppressed pistol from her designer handbag.
"Marcus will meet him there."
Related Stories
