Chapter 6 - The Fall of the House of Vance
The dog didn't go for the throat.
With terrifying, surgical precision, Umbral lunged forward and slammed his jaws around the lapel of Vance’s expensive, custom-made coat, dragging the screaming Colonel across the slick floor toward the open shaft of the bunker’s freight elevator.
"NO! STOP HIM! DOMINIC, PLEASE!" Vance shrieked, his hands clawing wildly at the concrete as the giant Cane Corso dragged him effortlessly like a ragdoll. "I’LL GIVE YOU THE CODES! FORTY TRILLION DOLLARS! WE CAN SPLIT IT! YOU CAN OWN ENTIRE NATIONS!"
Dominic walked slowly behind them, his face carved out of stone. He reached the edge of the open shaft. Below them, a hundred-foot drop led to the flooded, sub-basement drainage systems of the city.
Umbral stopped right at the precipice, holding Vance dangling by his collar over the dark abyss. The Colonel was sobbing, his fancy clothes torn, his dignity reduced to dust.
Dominic knelt at the edge of the drop, looking down at the cowering titan.
"You asked me earlier if I knew what kind of investment I was making, Vance," Dominic said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone. He flicked the screen on, revealing a digital transfer confirmation window. "I just spent the last five minutes while Mara was talking buying out your security firm's parent holding company."
Vance stopped screaming, his eyes widening in pure horror. "What... what did you say?"
"Your board of directors just sold me sixty percent of Vance Global Holdings for pennies on the dollar," Dominic said smoothly, tapping the screen. "They thought you were dead after the EMP hit. Market panics are so predictable, aren't they? So right now, Colonel... you’re technically trespassing on my corporate property."
Dominic looked at Umbral.
"Drop him," Dominic said.
"NOOOOO—!"
Umbral opened his jaws.
Vance fell into the dark, his screams echoing down the concrete shaft until they ended with a sudden, heavy splash in the deep, freezing water below.
Dominic didn't look down to see if he survived. He turned his back on the shaft, picked up his discarded jacket, and threw it over Mara’s frail shoulders.
"Is it over?" Mara asked softly, looking up at the ceiling where the distant sounds of rain were beginning to replace the gunfire.
"For him, yes," Dominic said, offering her his hand. "For us? We just became the most wanted people on the planet."
DeMarco limped into the hallway, covered in drywall dust, his arm tied in a makeshift sling, but holding an encrypted military radio in his good hand.
"Boss," DeMarco gasped, holding out the radio. "We’ve got a problem. A big one."
Dominic took the radio. "Report."
A cold, calm, female voice echoed through the speaker:
"Dominic Vasquez. This is the Swiss Federal Banking Authority and the International Criminal Court. We have detected an unauthorized cryptographic breach originating from your coordinate. You have ten minutes to hand over the child, or we initiate a tactical orbital strike on your location."
Dominic looked at Mara, then at Umbral, who sat faithfully at her side, his tail giving a single, quiet thud against the ground.
May you like
Dominic raised the radio to his mouth and smiled a dark, vicious smile.
"You have five minutes to cancel that order," Dominic said into the mic, "or I upload the entire Ghost Ledger onto the public internet and destroy every bank on earth by breakfast."
