Chapter 7 - The Final Recipe
Forty-eight hours later, Dante Vance sat in his private waterfront penthouse, swirling a glass of vintage wine as he watched the Chicago skyline bleed into the sunset. His phone buzzed on the mahogany table.
"The girl has been cornered," a voice hissed through the secure line. "We have the bakery surrounded. She brought the book."
"Bring her to me," Vance smiled, his eyes gleaming with sick triumph. "And make sure the recipe stays intact. I want a slice of that cake before I burn her empire to the ground."
An hour later, the heavy iron doors of Vance’s warehouse swung open. Two guards shoved Lena forward, her hands bound behind her back, though she held her head high. Behind her, three more men dragged a bruised, bloodied Adrien Moretti onto the concrete floor, his hands locked in heavy zip-ties.
Vance stepped out from the shadows, a silver-haired wolf of a man with cold, dead eyes.
"Ah, the legendary baker," Vance mocked, stepping up to Lena and lifting her chin with two fingers. "And her loyal bodyguard. You should have stayed in your little shop, my dear."
"You talk too much, uncle," Adrien spat from the floor, blood dripping from his lip, though his eyes burned with absolute fury.
"Shut him up," Vance sneered, turning his attention back to Lena. "Now, hand over the book. Where are the accounts?"
Lena looked at Vance, then down at Adrien. A slow, defiant smile crept across her lips—the exact same smile her grandmother used to wear before turning a harsh critic out into the cold rain.
"You want the recipe, Dante?" Lena asked, her voice echoing clearly through the cavernous warehouse. "Here it is."
She didn't hand him a book. Instead, she reached into her pocket with her bound fingers, pulling out a small, metallic flash drive she had hidden inside a hollowed-out vanilla bean pod.
"What is this?" Vance frowned, grabbing it from her fingers.
"A timer," Adrien whispered from the floor, his smile matching hers.
Before Vance could plug it into his terminal, the heavy steel doors of the warehouse blew inward with a deafening roar.
May you like
Flashbang grenades flooded the space with blinding white light and concussive thunder. Heavily armed federal agents and Moretti loyalists poured into the building from every angle, led by Marcus, who raised a tactical shotgun and leveled it directly at Vance's chest.
"It's over, Dante," Adrien said, snapping his zip-ties effortlessly with a sudden, explosive flex of muscle—the bonds had been loose all along, a calculated trap.
