Chapter 10 - The Ultimate Leverage|
I let out a blood-curdling scream, slamming my fists against the glass of the monitor screen.
"Chloe! No! Oh God, no!"
On the screen, my little girl was crying silently, a piece of dark tape covering her mouth, her wide, terrified eyes looking around the dimly lit room. Standing beside her was a man in an expensive gray suit, his face obscured by the shadows, holding a quiet silver revolver against her shoulder.
Over the intercom, Arthur Vance's cold, calculated voice continued.
"You thought she was safe at her aunt's house in Vermont, didn't you, Daniel? You thought your little perimeter held. But Julian was very helpful. He gave us the security codes to the Vermont property three days ago."
In the upstairs hallway, I watched Julian on the camera feed. He had heard the broadcast too. He dropped his gun, collapsing onto his knees, pulling at his hair as he sobbed in sheer, pathetic agony.
"My baby... oh God, Chloe..." Julian wailed into the dark hallway.
My father stepped into the camera's frame in the kitchen. He stood perfectly still, his weapon held lowered at his side, looking directly into the lens of the kitchen security camera, knowing Vance was watching the feed.
"If you touch her, Arthur," my father said, his voice dropping into a register so cold, so terrifyingly level that it didn't sound human, "there is no corner of this earth where you can hide. I will tear your world down brick by brick."
"Empty threats from an old ghost," Vance mocked through the speaker. "Here are my terms, Daniel. You have two hours to bring Audrey to the abandoned rail yard at Sector 4. She gives us her blood sample, you hand over the master decryption key, and the girl lives. If I see a single federal agent or a single military vehicle, I put a bullet through Chloe's knee, and then we start on her fingers."
The transmission cut out. The monitor went black.
In the panic room, I hit the steel override wheel, spinning it furiously until the locking bolts retracted with a heavy clatter. I threw the vault door open and dragged my broken body up the basement stairs, ignoring the blinding pain tearing through my ribs and legs.
I burst through the top door into the dark, smoke-filled hallway.
My father was standing near the front entrance, reloading his weapon with methodical, terrifying precision.
"Dad," I sobbed, leaning against the wall for support. "We're going to Sector 4. Right now."
My father looked at me, his eyes dark with a storm of fury that had been brewing for twenty years.
"No, Audrey," he said softly. "We aren't going there to trade."
He snapped the magazine into his pistol with a sharp clack.
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"We're going there to finish the war."
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