Chapter 9 - The Reckoning in the CaymansThree hours later, the Gulfstream touched down on a private, isolated airstrip in the Cayman Islands under a steady tropical downpour.
Before the stairs even fully deployed, Vincent Hale stepped out into the rain, his black coat billowing around him like the wings of a vulture. Behind him walked four armed enforcers, their faces grim and determined.
Waiting at the edge of the tarmac was a sleek, black limousine, surrounded by four nervous-looking bodyguards holding submachine guns.
As Vincent approached, the rear door of the limousine popped open, and Marcus Vance stepped out, desperately trying to maintain a facade of corporate composure despite the pouring rain.
"Vincent," Marcus forced a tight, nervous smile, his hands shaking slightly as he adjusted his cuffs. "I see you survived the welcome committee back home. You really shouldn't have flown all this way just for a business dispute—"
Before Marcus could finish his sentence, Vincent closed the distance between them in a flash of motion, grabbed Marcus by the collar of his expensive Brioni suit, and slammed him bodily against the side of the limousine with a deafening CRASH.
Marcus gasped, the wind knocked completely out of his lungs as Vincent’s hand locked around his throat like a hydraulic vise.
"The money, the data, the corporate betrayal—I could almost forgive that, Marcus," Vincent whispered, his voice dangerously quiet, terrifyingly calm. "Greed is a predictable disease."
Marcus clawed at Vincent’s wrist, his face turning a deep shade of purple. "V-Vincent... please... we can negotiate—"
"You knew," Vincent interrupted, his gray-green eyes burning with the fury of a thousand suns. "For six years, you sat at my right hand, knowing that my son was alive, knowing that the cartel had him stashed ten miles north of the city, and you used that information to keep me on a leash."
Marcus’s eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated terror. He tried to speak, but no sound came out.
"Who ordered the hit on my wife's car six years ago?" Vincent demanded, applying just enough pressure to crush Marcus’s windpipe. "Who in the Iron Cross Cartel took my boy?"
"I... I don't know!" Marcus choked out, tears mixing with the rainwater streaming down his face. "It wasn't Viktor! It was... it was..."
Before Marcus could name the mastermind, a sharp, supersonic crack split the tropical air.
CRACK!
A high-caliber sniper bullet punched straight through the center of Marcus Vance’s forehead, spraying blood and bone fragments across the side of the limousine. Marcus’s eyes rolled back, and his lifeless body slumped limply to the wet pavement.
Vincent didn't blink. He dropped the corpse into the mud, slowly turning his gaze toward the tree line across the perimeter fence where a wisp of smoke drifted from a dark ridge.
Another sniper. Another loose end being cut by the cartel to protect a much bigger secret.
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Vincent pulled his Sig Sauer, cocked the hammer, and looked at Daniel, who had just jogged up with the enforcers.
"They want a war," Vincent said, wiping a drop of rainwater from his cheek. "Let's give them an apocalypse."
