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The ink on the medical schedule wasn't standard printer black. It was darker, heavier, pressed down with the kind of deliberate malice that only a fountain pen could deliver. I stared at the signature at the bottom of the page, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. / Chapter 12 / 20

Chapter 12 - Breach of the Vault

The main entrance to the underground treasury was reinforced with four inches of solid titanium alloy. A keypad blinked with a steady, eerie blue light beside the heavy door.

Dante’s voice crackled through the intercom speaker mounted on the stone wall, laced with frantic desperation.

“You’re too late, Roman! The offshore transfers are already executing! By the time your men blow this door, every cent belonging to the Valente syndicate will be sitting in Swiss accounts under my name!”

Roman walked calmly up to the intercom, his expression completely unreadable. He didn't raise his voice, but every word cut through the speaker like a razor blade.

“You always were impatient, little brother,” Roman said smoothly. “Did you really think I’d leave the master override connected to the public network? You’ve been draining a dummy ledger for the last twenty minutes. You’re transferring Monopoly money.”

A sharp, panicked gasp echoed through the intercom. “You lying son of a—!”

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The burner phone in my hand felt heavy, like a slab of cold iron pulled from a sunken ship. Across the line, Marcus let out a breath that sounded like a low whistle escaping a pressure valve. Nineteen years of rust, nineteen years of school plays, quiet dinners, and ledger sheets—all of it dissolved in the space of a single heartbeat.

The burner phone in my hand felt heavy, like a slab of cold iron pulled...

The man in the back of the Bentley was not a stranger, though it took me three agonizing seconds to place the face behind the silver-trimmed beard. Arthur Vance. The reclusive billionaire shipping tycoon, corporate sniper, and my father’s oldest, most estranged rival.

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The kitchen was so quiet you could hear the distant murmur of the jazz trio outside, playing as if the world hadn't just tilted on its axis. Grant stared at the single sheet of thick parchment resting against the cold Italian marble. His breath caught, a shallow, ragged hitch that gave away his panic before his voice ever could.

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“Step away from the console, Dante,” Roman commanded, pressing a biometric palm scanner into the recessed wall panel and typing a rapid twenty-digit master sequence. “Or I flood this vault with Halon gas and let you suffocate the exact same way you tried to kill me.”

The heavy machinery inside the wall whined, gears grinding against one another with immense force. With a deafening thud, the massive titanium door swung slowly inward, revealing the dim, smoke-filled interior of the private vault.

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