Chapter 15 - The Ghost’s Ultimatum"I know you're in there, Mrs. Moretti," The Ghost hissed through the intercom, his tone smooth, patient, and terrifyingly calm. "Along with two very fragile, very expensive little pieces of leverage."
I held my breath, clutching the twins tightly. The babies had quieted down, sensing the mortal danger hanging in the air, their wide eyes staring up at me with innocent confusion. I raised the Sig Sauer pistol with a trembling hand, aiming dead-center at the electronic keypad of the vault door.
"If you try to burn the door open with a thermal lance, the structural charge will collapse the entire floor into Lake Michigan," I called out, my voice steadying with a sudden surge of ice-cold adrenaline. "You won't survive the drop either."
A low, raspy chuckle echoed from the hallway. "Smart girl. Dante always underestimated your backbone. But let's be realistic, Lena. You're holding two infants in a concrete box with no food, no escape, and an assassin standing right outside who doesn't care about your corporate empire."
"What do you want?" I demanded.
"Open the door. Hand over the micro-drive containing the secondary offshore Swiss routing codes, and walk out with me," The Ghost proposed smoothly. "In exchange, I let the babies live. Alistair and Julian are already bleeding out in the foyer; they won't be coming to save you."
My heart skipped a beat. Julian...
No. I refused to believe it. Julian was too smart, too resilient to fall so easily. But even if he was gone, I couldn't afford the luxury of grief. I was a mother, and my primary directive was survival.
"I have a counter-offer," I said, my finger tightening slightly on the trigger of the pistol.
"I'm listening."
"You walk away right now, and I let you leave Chicago with your life," I replied, my voice dropping an octave into pure, lethal venom. "Because if you touch the keypad of this door, I will empty every single round of this magazine through the reinforced observation port, and trust me—at this range, armor plating won't save you."
A heavy silence stretched across the intercom.
Outside the door, footsteps shifted. Then, a low voice spoke—not The Ghost's, but a voice so battered, gravelly, and instantly recognizable that my knees nearly buckled.
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"Don't... don't listen to him, Lena..." Julian groaned faintly from the hallway floor.
Hook: Julian was alive. But as the sound of a heavy mechanical saw whirred to life against the steel door, time officially ran out.
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