Chapter 22 - Shadows Over Geneva
Three thousand miles away, inside a subterranean concrete bunker hidden beneath the snowy pine forests outside Geneva, the air smelled of stale ozone, expensive scotch, and suppressed rage. Viktor Vance paced the length of a massive steel table, his heavy boots echoing sharply off the reinforced walls. Spread across the table were satellite photographs of Dante Rickai’s estate, thermal imaging layouts of the interior corridors, and intercepted logistical logs.
"He thinks he’s untouchable," Viktor Vance snarled, stopping to slam his palm down onto a map of the private road. "My brother Julian was a fool. He underestimated Rickai’s sentimentality, treated the girl like a pawn instead of the anchor she actually is. If you want to sink a ship, you don't fight the captain on the deck—you rip the heart out of the hull."
A scarred, broad-shouldered mercenary named Kaelen stepped out from the shadows near the communications rack. Kaelen was a veteran of the Balkan black ops, a ghost who left no paper trail and no surviving witnesses.
"We’ve mapped the perimeter blind spots," Kaelen said, his voice flat, gravelly, and entirely devoid of hesitation. "Rickai pulled his frontline enforcers back after the raid on Vance’s secondary warehouses. He thinks his transition into legitimate logistics has made him civilized. He’s relying on local security contractors and automated gates."
"And the inside?" Viktor asked, narrowing his eyes. "Alina Caruso failed us because she had a soft spot for the girl. We need someone who doesn't care about sentiment."
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"We don't need an inside man this time," Kaelen replied, a cold, predatory grin spreading across his face. "We have a chemical dispersal payload designed for high-end corporate security systems. It doesn't trigger alarms; it mutes them. It will put the entire estate—guards, staff, and master alike—into a deep, chemically induced paralysis within ninety seconds. By the time Rickai realizes his lungs are heavy, we’ll already be walking out with the child."
Viktor poured himself a finger of dark amber scotch, raising the glass toward the surveillance monitor that flickered with a live, grain-filtered satellite view of the Rickai mansion. "Bring me the girl. And make sure Dante watches from the floor while it happens. I want him to know what real silence feels like."
