Chapter 29 - The Fire in the Snow
The living room erupted into a deafening symphony of automatic gunfire and shattering glass.
The front windows blew inward, showering the Persian rugs with glittering shards of ice and safety glass as two operatives dropped through the frame, their assault rifles raised.
Adrian didn't hesitate. He fired twice, dropping the first operative before he even hit the floorboards. Mateo caught the second with a precise round to the shoulder, sending him crashing backward into the stone fireplace.
“They’re coming through the kitchen windows!” I shouted, pivoting toward the back hallway as three more masked mercenaries swarmed through the swinging doors.
I raised my Glock, exhaled slowly, and pulled the trigger.
The recoil kicked against my wrist, but the round hit its mark, dropping the lead operative instantly. The remaining two scrambled backward, shouting curses in French.
“Push them back to the foyer!” Adrian roared, laying down a relentless wall of suppressive fire that kept the enemy pinned behind the massive timber pillars of the entryway.
The front door swung completely open, revealing a towering figure standing amidst the swirling snowstorm outside.
Madame Cartier.
She wasn't holding a weapon. She stood tall in her elegant fur-lined coat, her silver hair blowing in the freezing wind, looking down at the chaos inside the lodge with cold, unimpressed detachment.
“Adrian!” she called out over the howling wind, stepping across the threshold into the blood-stained foyer. “You cannot fight the entire continent! Give us the encryption keys to the Swiss trust, and your family will be allowed safe passage out of the country!”
Adrian lowered his carbine just an inch, stepping out from behind the timber pillar, his eyes locked onto the old matriarch with venomous fury.
“You picked the wrong house, Elena,” Adrian said coldly.
He didn't fire a weapon. He pulled the satellite tablet from his tactical vest, pressed a single red confirmation button on the screen, and held it up for her to see.
“What is that?” Madame Cartier demanded, her aristocratic composure finally cracking for a fraction of a second.
“That,” Adrian smiled, “is the final keystroke.”
Across the globe—in Zurich, Geneva, Paris, and Milan—millions of lines of automated code executed simultaneously.
Beep.
Madame Cartier’s encrypted comms earpiece hissed with static. Her secure satellite phone began vibrating violently in her pocket. She pulled it out, staring at the screen in absolute, unadulterated horror.
Every single offshore account, every hidden asset, every syndicated shell company owned by the European council had just flashed red.
May you like
Zero balance. Assets seized by international mandate.
The empire she had spent fifty years building had just evaporated into digital ether in less than three seconds.
