Chapter 5 - The Final Stand"Drop it, Miller," I commanded, stepping out from behind the marble pillar with my MP5 raised dead at his chest.
Miller laughed hysterically, spattering flecks of blood onto the floor. "Shoot me, Julian! If I die, this whole place goes up in five seconds! Your daughters, your gold, your precious empire—all of it gone!"
I glanced sideways. Claire wasn't standing beside me.
She was gone.
Miller didn't notice. His eyes were locked entirely on me, high on adrenaline and betrayal. "You always thought you were untouchable, Vale! You thought you could run Chicago from a velvet chair while the rest of us did the dirty work!"
"You were well paid for the dirty work, Miller," I said coldly, keeping my finger feather-light on the trigger, buying time. Where are you, Claire?
"Paid? Money doesn't buy respect!" Miller snarled, his thumb applying pressure to the detonator switch. "Vance promised me half the northern shipping lanes. All I had to do was leave the back gate open!"
"And what about my wife three years ago?" I asked, the question slipping out before I could stop it—a festering wound I had carried in the dark for a thousand nights. "Did Vance pay you to plant that car bomb too?"
Miller froze, a sick, knowing grin spreading across his bloodied face. "Ah... so you figured out the car bomb wasn't an accident. Took you long enough, Julian. Yeah, I armed the ignition. You were getting soft, and the board wanted a leader who wasn't afraid to bleed."
My vision turned absolute red. Every drop of syndicate blood, every violent instinct I had spent a decade trying to bury for the sake of my surviving daughters, surged back to the surface with the force of a tidal wave.
I raised the barrel of my gun to his forehead.
"See you in hell, Miller," I whispered.
Before I could pull the trigger, a sleek, black metallic blur dropped silently from the ceiling beam directly above Miller.
It was Claire.
She didn't use a gun. In her right hand, she held a heavy, military-grade combat knife. With blinding speed, she landed squarely on Miller’s shoulders, driving her knees into his spine and slashing the wrist of his detonator-holding hand with surgical, brutal precision.
The detonator flew from Miller’s paralyzed fingers, spinning across the polished marble floor.
The three mercenaries behind him tried to raise their rifles, but before their barrels could clear their hips, a series of rapid, suppressed shots echoed from the balcony above.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
All three mercenaries dropped instantly, neutralised by precise, head-shot triage.
Miller shrieked as Claire pinned him to the floor, her combat knife pressed directly against his carotid artery, her breath coming in calm, measured intervals.
"That," Claire whispered into Miller’s ear, her voice carrying the terrifying, ice-cold fury of a woman executing a final judgment, "is for my sister."
She didn't slice his throat. Instead, she brought the heavy pommel of her knife down hard against the side of his skull, plunging him into instant, dead darkness.
May you like
Miller slumped sideways, completely out cold.
The mansion fell utterly, profoundly silent.
