Chapter 4 - Blood on the LedgerThe black SUVs smashed through the rusted chain-link gates of the South Chicago Shipping Terminal like battering rams. Headlights flared through the driving rain, illuminating dozens of armed mercenaries scrambling for cover behind stacked shipping containers.
"Stay in the car," Adrian ordered, reaching under his seat and pulling out a customized Sig Sauer P226.
"Adrian, wait—"
"Lock the doors. Do not open them for anyone who isn't me."
Before Audrey could argue, Adrian was out the door. The sound of gunfire shattered the rainy night air. It wasn't a skirmish; it was a massacre. Adrian moved through the yard with terrifying efficiency, a shadow among shadows, cutting down Marcus’s advance guard before they even had time to raise their rifles.
Inside the SUV, Audrey’s heart hammered against her bruised ribs. She looked at her laptop screen. The tracking signal for Marcus’s broadcast relay was pulsing from inside warehouse building 4B—just fifty yards away.
If he destroys that server, Adrian loses the proof, she thought. The empire falls.
She looked at the locked doors. She looked at the heavy wrench lying in the vehicle's emergency kit.
Ignoring the searing pain in her side, Audrey grabbed the heavy metal tool, smashed the side window, cleared the glass shards with her coat sleeve, and scrambled out into the freezing downpour.
She didn't have a gun. She didn't have tactical gear. But she had a brain that memorized every single architectural blueprint Cross Holdings had ever acquired.
Sneaking through the side loading dock of warehouse 4B, Audrey slipped inside just as the heavy gunfire outside began to fade.
The interior was vast, dark, and filled with towering stacks of imported crates. In the center, illuminated by a single flickering overhead halogen bulb, sat Marcus Vance.
He was standing over an open server rack, a cigarette hanging casually from his lips, watching a progress bar crawl across a monitor.
"Well, well," Marcus said, not even turning around. "I expected Adrian's attack dogs, not his office pet."
Audrey stepped out from behind a wooden pallet, holding her side, her face pale but her eyes blazing. "The transfer is locked, Marcus. You missed the master checksum by four digits."
Marcus turned slowly. A cruel, jagged scar ran down the right side of his neck—the souvenir from the Milwaukee fire he had engineered. He grinned, pulling a silver pistol from his waistband and pointing it straight at her chest.
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"It doesn't matter if the transfer goes through, sweetheart," Marcus laughed, cocking the hammer. "Once Adrian walks through those doors and sees your brains painted across these servers, his rage is going to make him burn every single remaining asset to the ground. And I’ll be waiting in the ashes to pick up the crown."
He pulled the trigger.
