Chapter 7 - THE FINAL GAMBITThree weeks passed.
The fall of the Vale family had become the scandal of the decade. Celeste Vale was sentenced to seven years in state prison for corporate fraud and extortion after failing to secure bail. Brody Vance was caught at the Canadian border trying to flee with a fake passport and was now facing ten years in maximum security.
Adrian Vale was awaiting trial, living in a dilapidated one-bedroom apartment in the poorest district of the city, working twelve-hour shifts at a late-night warehouse just to pay his court-ordered legal fees.
His fall was complete. But in his mind, a dark, toxic obsession had taken root.
He didn't care about his freedom anymore. He didn't care about his mother. He had lost everything because of one person: Elena Ward.
If he was going to prison for fifteen years, he made a vow to himself that Elena would not live to enjoy her empire.
Using the last of his hidden cash reserves—money he had stashed in a safe deposit box under an alias—Adrian purchased a unregistered handgun and a stolen motorcycle from a black-market dealer on the docks.
He spent four days tracking Elena's routine.
Every Thursday evening at 8:00 PM, Elena visited the St. Jude Children’s Orphanage—the very place where she had been raised before Julian found her. She went there alone, accompanied only by Marcus, to personally hand-deliver charity checks and read to the children.
"Tonight," Adrian whispered to himself, sitting on his motorcycle in a dark alley across from the orphanage, staring at his reflection in the rearview mirror. His face was hollow, his eyes bloodshot and unhinged. "Tonight, you pay the ultimate price, Elena."
At 8:15 PM, the heavy wrought-iron gates of the orphanage opened.
Elena walked out into the courtyard, wearing a simple beige coat. Marcus was ten yards ahead of her, opening the door of her black sedan.
Adrian revved the motorcycle engine, his knuckles white around the handlebars. He pulled the handgun from his jacket, resting it against his thigh.
"Die, you bitch," he hissed.
He slammed his foot onto the accelerator. The motorcycle roared out of the alley, tearing across the wet asphalt toward Elena at sixty miles per hour.
Elena turned her head at the sound of the screeching tires.
Adrian raised the gun, aiming directly at her chest through his helmet visor.
Fifty feet.
Thirty feet.
Ten feet.
Adrian pulled the trigger.
CLICK.
Nothing happened.
Panicked, Adrian pulled the trigger again and again. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.
The gun was jammed. The black-market seller had sold him a defective, rusted firing pin.
Before Adrian could react, Marcus pulled his own weapon with lightning speed, firing two precise shots into the front tire of the speeding motorcycle.
The front wheel blew out with a deafening pop. The motorcycle flipped violently into the air, throwing Adrian over the handlebars.
He crashed hard onto the cobblestone courtyard, his body tumbling twenty feet before slamming into the concrete steps of the orphanage.
His arm snapped with a sickening crunch. His helmet shattered upon impact.
Bleeding, broken, and agonizingly paralyzed from the waist down, Adrian lay on his back, gasping for air, looking up at the dark night sky.
A pair of high heels stopped inches from his face.
Elena looked down at him. She didn't flinch. She didn't panic. She looked at his broken body with the same cold detachment a scientist uses to study a specimen under a microscope.
"Did you really think I didn't know you were tracking me, Adrian?" Elena asked softly.
Adrian choked on his own blood, struggling to speak. "You... you knew?"
Marcus stepped forward, kicking the jammed handgun away from Adrian’s broken fingers.
"We bought the black-market dealer who sold you that gun three days ago, Mr. Vale," Marcus said calmly. "We paid him fifty thousand dollars to give you a weapon with a shaved firing pin."
Adrian’s eyes widened in absolute, agonizing horror.
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He hadn't been hunting her.
She had lured him into a trap.
