Chapter 28 - Betrayal in the Snow
Ethan Vance—the fiancé who had thrown Claire to the ground at the Grand Meridian, the man who had slid a five-carat diamond ring onto Vanessa’s finger while whispering promises of devotion—was not a pawn in the Whitmore game.
He was Evelyn’s direct lieutenant.
"You..." Vanessa gasped, her voice trembling with an explosive mixture of disgust and betrayal. "You were working for her the entire time?!"
Ethan turned, a smug, cruel smirk curling his handsome lips. He wore a heavy wool designer coat over a tactical vest, an MPX submachine gun slung casually across his chest.
"Did you really think I loved you, Vanessa?" Ethan laughed, stepping in front of Evelyn as she slipped into the rear seat of the armored Maybach. "Your father was a dying dog. His empire was leaking billions. Evelyn offered me ten percent of Argos Global just to keep you sedated, paranoid, and distracted while she consolidated the offshore shell companies. You were just a spoiled, insecure brat who needed someone to tell her she was pretty."
Vanessa didn't scream. She didn't cry.
She raised her weapon and fired three consecutive rounds directly at Ethan’s skull.
Ethan anticipated the move, diving behind the reinforced engine block of the Maybach as Vanessa’s bullets sparked harmlessly against the bulletproof glass. "Kill them!" Ethan shouted to his men. "Blow the tunnel behind us!"
A deafening barrage of automatic fire pinned the sisters behind the heavy concrete pillar supporting the tunnel ceiling. Concrete dust blinded their eyes; the sound inside the enclosed subterranean chamber was concussive, threatening to shatter their eardrums.
Suddenly, the roar of a heavy diesel engine echoed from behind them.
Marcus Reed blasted through the elevator corridor driving an armored hotel utility truck. He slammed the truck sideways between the sisters and the firing squad, absorbing the hail of lead into the heavy steel flatbed.
"Get in!" Marcus kicked the passenger door open.
Claire grabbed Vanessa by the arm, dragging her into the cab just as Marcus slammed the transmission into reverse, spun the wheel, and floored the accelerator, chasing the Maybach as it roared down the subterranean service ramp and burst out into the blizzard-choked mountain pass of the Swiss Alps.
The chase down the serpentine switchbacks above Lake Geneva was pure madness.
Blinding snow obliterated all visibility. The road was a narrow ribbon of black ice perched over a two-thousand-foot vertical drop into the frozen abyss of the valley below. Ahead of them, the heavy Maybach was tearing through the drifts, its twin-turbo V12 engine roaring like a caged beast.
Ethan leaned out of the passenger window of the Maybach, firing long bursts from his submachine gun into the windshield of the truck.
*CRACK!*
A bullet punched through the reinforced glass, grazing Marcus’s shoulder. Blood instantly soaked his black wool sweater. Marcus grunted, his grip slipping on the wheel as the truck fishtailed dangerously toward the edge of the cliff, the rear tires spinning out over empty air.
"Marcus!" Claire screamed, grabbing the wheel, forcing the truck back onto the frozen tarmac.
"The bridge ahead!" Vanessa yelled, pointing through the wipers. "The border crossing over the gorge! If they cross the suspension bridge, they can detonate the support cables and leave us trapped!"
"Give me the rifle from the rack!" Vanessa screamed at Marcus.
Marcus kicked open the gun rack behind the seats, handing Vanessa a heavy .308 bolt-action hunting rifle.
Vanessa didn't hesitate. She kicked open the passenger door into the howling, freezing wind, hooked her legs around the seat frame, and leaned her entire upper body out into the sub-zero blizzard.
She looked down the iron sights. The wind whipped her hair across her face, but her breathing slowed to an absolute standstill. She saw Ethan leaning out of the window again, raising his weapon.
"This is for Claire," Vanessa whispered.
*BOOM.*
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The heavy rifle kicked against her shoulder. The .308 round tore clean through the Maybach’s left rear tire at one hundred miles per hour.
The Maybach instantly lost traction on the black ice. The heavy luxury vehicle spun violently out of control, slamming into the concrete barrier of the suspension bridge, flipping twice through the air before crashing upside down into the deep snowdrifts blocking the entrance to an abandoned Cold War sub-zero military vault at the edge of the glacier.
