Chapter 27 - The Syndicate’s True Master
The sight of Charles Whitmore—alive, broken, and paraded like a captured animal—sent the gala into utter chaos. Women shrieked, backing away from the perimeter, while private bank directors immediately scrambled toward the emergency exits, desperate to distance themselves from the catastrophic public scandal unfolding in front of them.
"Evelyn!" Charles roared from the wheelchair, his voice ragged, saliva flying from his lips. "You thought you locked the vault in Zurich?! You thought my biometric key was obsolete?!"
Evelyn’s composure finally fractured. Her jaw tightened into a hard, venomous line. "Get him out of here," she hissed to her security team. "Kill him. Kill all of them. Now!"
Gunfire erupted.
The silencer on Marcus’s pistol coughed twice. The two lead guards lunging toward Claire collapsed to the polished floor before their hands could clear their holsters. Panic exploded across the ballroom. Crystal chandeliers rattled as hundreds of elite guests trampled over each other toward the exits.
"Move!" Marcus yelled, grabbing Claire’s waist and shoving her behind the massive marble ice-sculpture pedestal as submachine gun fire chewed through the ice, sending razor-sharp shards raining down upon them.
Vanessa didn't run. She dropped to one knee, pulled the .22 from her clutch with perfect, mechanical calm, and squeezed the trigger three times into the chest of an approaching operative, dropping him instantly. She had spent a decade taking private shooting lessons at her father’s private ranges; she was not a socialite in distress—she was an assassin bred in silk.
Across the shattered room, Evelyn turned and sprinted toward the private service elevator that led to the underground vaults of the hotel.
"She’s heading for the Alpine transit tunnel!" Charles screamed from the floor where he had rolled his wheelchair over to avoid the crossfire. "The underground rail connects to her private hangar across the border in France! If she reaches the train, she is gone forever!"
"Marcus, stay with Charles and secure the ledger drive!" Claire yelled, hiking up the slit of her emerald dress. "Vanessa, with me!"
The two sisters sprinted in unison across the debris-strewn ballroom, stepping over shattered crystal and fallen mercenaries, diving into the closing doors of the service elevator just as a hail of bullets sparked against the bronze frame.
Vanessa jammed the emergency descent key into the panel. The elevator plummeted toward the sub-basement at stomach-churning speed.
"Are you hit?" Vanessa asked, her breath coming in ragged gasps, her hands frantically checking Claire’s arms and torso.
"I’m fine! I’m fine!" Claire breathed, her adrenaline surging like electricity. "Vanessa... she has the master decryption key around her neck. The physical cold-storage thumb drive. If she crosses into France, the data disperses into thirty ghost servers. Everything we did... the suffering, the escape... it will all mean nothing!"
"Then we don't let her cross," Vanessa said, racking the slide of a recovered 9mm Glock she had stripped from the fallen guard. Her eyes met Claire's. There was no hesitation left in either of them. "We finish this together."
*DING.*
The elevator doors slid open into the freezing, concrete-lined depths of the hotel’s sub-basement. A cold, howling wind rushed through the subterranean tunnel, carrying the smell of snow, ozone, and gun oil.
Fifty yards ahead, running toward an armored Mercedes-Benz Maybach idling on the subterranean private rail platform, was Evelyn.
Beside the car stood three men in tactical winter gear—and the man opening the Maybach’s passenger door for Evelyn turned his face toward the light.
May you like
Claire stopped dead in her tracks, her blood turning to pure ice.
It was Ethan Vance.
