Chapter 3 - The Interrogation RoomHer dress was torn at the shoulder, her dark hair plastered against her forehead, and a strip of heavy-duty duct tape was plastered across her mouth. Her eyes widened in terror as I stepped into the light, recognizing the man she had fled less than an hour ago.
"Don't move," I commanded softly, lowering my weapon as I scanned the cavernous interior.
The warehouse was empty except for her. No guards inside. No Vincent. Just an old laptop set up on a rusted steel drum facing the chair, its webcam blinking with a steady green light.
Marcus rushed forward, slicing the zip ties binding her wrists with a combat knife while I tore the tape from her mouth. She gasped, sucking in air as if she had been drowning, her body trembling violently.
"Luca... they were going to kill me," she choked out, tears mixing with the rain on her cheeks. "The men in the car... they said I knew too much about the payout."
"You're safe now," I said, my voice steady, though my blood was boiling. I stepped over to the laptop. A blinking cursor flashed on the screen, accompanied by a text prompt: Welcome, nephew. Did you really think you could win a game where I wrote all the rules?
Suddenly, the built-in speaker crackled to life.
"Impressive, Luca," a smooth, cultured voice echoed through the empty warehouse. Uncle Vincent. "I always knew you had your father's killer instinct. But tracking me down won't change the arithmetic of your pathetic little problem."
"Where are you, Vincent?" I spoke into the laptop’s microphone, my voice deathly calm.
"Does it matter? By sunrise, the board of Vale Industries will receive an emergency motion based on your medical incapacity clause. With you legally declared unfit to manage your personal or corporate affairs due to psychological instability, control reverts to the senior executor." A soft chuckle drifted through the speaker. "You never had a condition, my boy. Just a very carefully curated paranoia. And now, your empire belongs to me."
The screen flickered, displaying a live feed of the corporate boardroom on the 80th floor of Vale Tower.
And sitting at the head of the mahogany table, casually sipping a cup of coffee, was Vincent’s chief legal counsel—and federal prosecutors walking through the double doors with a federal arrest warrant for insider trading and corporate embezzlement.
Wait. Not federal prosecutors.
May you like
Securities and Exchange Commission agents.
Vincent froze on the screen, his coffee cup hovering inches from his lips as the boardroom doors blew open.
