Chapter 7 - THE AMBUSH AT MIDNIGHT
The lead operative reacted with lethal speed, swinging his submachine gun toward my chest. But anticipation was everything. I ducked beneath the sweep of the barrel, drove my heel hard into his knee joint with a sickening crunch, and wrenched the weapon from his grip in one fluid, brutal motion.
The second operative lunged forward, throwing a knife-hand strike aimed at my throat. I blocked with my forearm, spun inside his guard, and delivered a devastating palm-strike to his chest plate, sending him crashing backward over the gallery railing. He hit the floor below with a heavy thud and went completely still.
I stood in the center of the dark hallway, my breathing steady, the heavy pistol locked firmly in my right hand.
I kicked the remaining operative’s mask off. Underneath was a face I didn't recognize—a hardened mercenary with a jagged scar across his jaw.
"Who sent you?" I demanded, pressing the barrel of my gun against his temple. "Jason?"
The mercenary let out a bloody, humorless laugh. "Miller... is a dead man walking. He thought he could steal from the cartel and hide behind his rich wife. But you... you just signed your own death warrant by getting in the middle of this."
Before I could press him further, a red laser dot suddenly danced across his forehead.
Crack.
A silenced sniper bullet shattered the glass window behind us, passing clean through the mercenary's skull. He slumped forward, lifeless.
I threw myself to the floor, rolling behind a marble pillar, my heart hammering against my ribs. I looked toward the harbor-facing balcony. Through the shattered glass, a dark figure in a tactical harness was lowering themselves down from a rope line attached to a private helicopter hovering quietly above the fog.
The figure dropped onto my balcony, stepped through the broken glass, and walked slowly into the living room.
It wasn't an assassin.
He wore a tailored charcoal suit that looked entirely out of place amidst the carnage. He had silver-streaked dark hair, sharp, intelligent eyes, and a quiet, commanding presence that filled the room instantly.
Julian Vance.
"You're awfully hard to reach on an unsecured line, Sophia," Julian said calmly, casually stepping over the body of the mercenary as if he were stepping over a fallen branch.
I kept my pistol leveled directly at his chest. "You knew they were coming."
"I knew they were close," Julian corrected, holding his hands up in a gesture of absolute transparency. "That's why I came myself. My brother is a fool, Sophia. He thought he could play with fire and escape unscathed. But the syndicate doesn't leave loose ends. If you stay in Boston, you will spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder."
"I built my entire life in Boston," I said coldly. "I'm not running."
"You aren't running," Julian replied softly, taking another step closer. "You're regrouping. And if you want to dismantle the syndicate that has been using your company as a piggy bank, you need someone who knows their language, their accounts, and their safehouses. You need me."
I studied his face for a long moment, searching for any trace of the deceit I had grown so accustomed to dealing with in Jason. All I saw was absolute, cold resolve.
May you like
"Prove it," I said.
Julian smiled faintly, pulling a heavy flash drive from his pocket and tossing it across the floor toward my feet. "Everything you need to trace their offshore accounts to your ex-husband's new hideout in the Cayman Islands. Shall we book a flight?"
