Chapter 29 - Unholy Alliances
"Vanessa!" I screamed, instinctively moving toward my sister, but Croft stepped forward, the barrel of his gun pressing firmly against the center of my forehead.
The cold steel against my skin froze me in place. The smell of gun smoke and iron was suffocating. Behind me, Graham was struggling to stand, his teeth gritted in agony as blood poured between his fingers, but Croft didn't even spare him a glance.
"Do not move, Miss Vance," Croft said, his voice entirely conversational. "Your sister served her purpose. She brought you here. She entered the administrator bypass that only a bloodline Vance could initiate. And now, she has become an unnecessary liability."
On the floor, Vanessa’s breathing was turning into a wet, ragged gurgle. Her hand, trembling and covered in crimson, reached out toward the hem of my jeans. Her fingers hooked into the denim, weakly, desperately. The sister who had hated me, who had tried to frame me, was now looking up at me with the sheer, unadulterated terror of a dying child.
"Why?" I choked out, staring into Croft’s soulless gray eyes. "Arthur gave you everything. You ran the offshore networks. Why murder him? Why slaughter his family?"
"Because Arthur grew a conscience in his old age," Croft said with profound disgust. "A terminal cancer diagnosis has a way of ruining perfectly efficient men. He realized the Syndicate's capital was derived from human trafficking, weapon logistics, and cartel escrows. He wanted to liquidate the trust and funnel the entire eleven-figure reserve into humanitarian foundations in your name. A pathetic bid to buy his way into heaven."
Croft raised the remote detonator. The red timer read: *00:00:48.*
"I represent the Syndicate, Claire," Croft whispered. "We do not permit eleven billion dollars to be donated to orphanages. The liability falls on you. You die here alongside your traitorous sister and your disgraced lover. When the local authorities sift through the ashes of *The Elmhurst*, they will find the bodies of three conspirators who had a violent falling out over the stolen billions. The case will be closed. The funds will be reclaimed by our primary clearinghouse in Singapore."
"And Lily?" I hissed, tears of pure venom spilling down my cheeks. "What about my daughter?"
Croft smiled—a thin, razor-sharp slit. "A child with no surviving parents and an immense, untraceable trust fund is the easiest asset in the world to manage. She will be placed in an exceptional private academy in Geneva. Under my personal guardianship."
A primal roar tore from Graham’s throat.
Ignoring the bullet wound in his shoulder, Graham lunged forward with everything he had left, tackling Croft around the waist and driving him violently into the plexiglass server enclosure. The glass shattered into a thousand jagged spiderwebs.
The gun went off wild, the bullet ricocheting off the steel ceiling. The detonator flew from Croft’s hand, sliding across the bloody floor toward my feet.
"Claire! The override!" Graham shouted, his fingers digging into Croft’s throat as the two men wrestled violently on the ground. Croft was younger, uninjured, and brutally trained; he drove an elbow hard into Graham’s wounded shoulder, eliciting an agonized cry from Graham.
I didn't reach for the gun.
I dove for the console.
The screen flashed red: *SELF-DESTRUCT IN 20 SECONDS. ENTER MASTER BYPASS.*
I slammed my palm onto the biometric scanner.
The screen blinked: *PRIMARY BIOMETRIC ACCEPTED: CLAIRE VANCE. WAITING FOR SECONDARY AUTHORIZATION.*
"It needs Lily!" I cried out in horror. "I don't have Lily!"
A weak, bloody hand suddenly reached up from beneath the terminal desk.
Vanessa.
Her face was deathly pale, her lips blue, but her eyes were burning with a terrifying, dying clarity. Clutched in her bloody fist was the silver chain she had worn around her neck since she was twelve years old—the twin drive that Arthur had given her.
"Not... not Lily," Vanessa wheezed, blood spilling over her lips. "Arthur... Arthur lied to Croft. He didn't... he didn't code it to the baby..."
May you like
She thrust the drive into my shaking hand.
"He coded it... to the daughters," Vanessa whispered, her voice fading to a frail breath. "Both of us, Claire. He coded it... to both of us."
