Chapter 45 - Trial by Fire
*"You monstrous sociopath,"* Valentina snarled, stepping into the camera’s frame, shielding Owen behind her legs. "He is three years old! He is your own flesh and blood!"
*"He is the future of our family’s empire,"* Victoria corrected coolly, leaning forward, resting her chin on steepled fingers. *"Blood is merely chemistry, Valentina. What resides in his cellular sequence is the cryptographic architecture for the next fifty years of global warfare, logistics, and surveillance. Arthur was too cowardly to wield it. Celeste was too stupid. But you..."*
Victoria tilted her head, her gaze piercing through the lens.
*"You have kept him alive through two strike teams, an assassination attempt, and a winter storm. You possess the fire that my pathetic children lacked. Bring him to Geneva. Surrender the boy to the primary facility, and I will make you the head of the Pendelton Foundation. You will have wealth beyond comprehension. Power beyond the reach of any law."*
Valentina reached out, her fingers closing around the terminal's manual communication switch.
"I have a counter-offer, Victoria," Valentina said, her voice dropping to a deadly, gravel-edged whisper.
Victoria’s eyebrow arched in amusement. *"Oh? And what is that, my dear?"*
"When I come to Geneva," Valentina said, each word carved from ice, "I am not bringing you your key. I am bringing your casket."
Valentina slammed the emergency override lever down, severing the satellite link. The screen went instantly black.
"Vance!" Matteo came running up the spiral staircase, grease covering his clothes, holding an emergency sat-phone. "I re-routed the emergency radio! The atmospheric interference cleared! I reached a private airstrip twenty miles south—"
Matteo stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes falling on the dead commandos, and then on Vance, who was slumped against the iron console, his breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps.
"Vance!" Valentina dropped to her knees beside the veteran operative.
May you like
She pulled open his vest. Two armor-piercing rounds from Richter’s carbine had penetrated the side seam of his plate carrier. The bleeding was severe, pooling thick and dark into the fabric of his trousers.
"Leave the gear," Vance whispered, his hand catching Valentina’s forearm with surprising strength. "Take the boy. The second transport... they aren't landing. They’re calling in an airstrike."
