The Vanguard Pinnacle was no longer a luxury hotel; it was a war zone. Elena’s private security detail—hulking men in dark suits with earpieces—patrolled the corridors like an occupying army.
Sarah retreated to the sub-basement security hub. Marcus, a former Marine intelligence officer and Sarah’s most trusted confidant, was typing furiously at a bank of monitors.
“They’re locking us out of the mainframes,” Marcus said, not taking his eyes off the screen. “Elena’s IT team is aggressive. They’re hunting for the master encryption keys.”
“Let them hunt,” Sarah said, tossing her uniform jacket onto a chair and rolling up her sleeves. “The keys are hard-coded to an offline server in Switzerland. But we need leverage, Marcus. I need to prove Julian swapped those papers.”
“I pulled the security footage from the club last night,” Marcus said, bringing up a grainy, low-light video. “It’s a private VIP room. No cameras inside. But look at the hallway outside.”
He fast-forwarded the video. At 11:42 PM, a man in a waiter’s uniform exited the VIP room carrying a silver tray. Hidden beneath a linen napkin was a thick manila envelope.
“Zoom in on his face,” Sarah commanded.
Marcus enhanced the image. The man wasn’t a waiter. It was Victor, a known enforcer for the Volkov syndicate—a ruthless Eastern European crime family that Arthur Vance had famously refused to do business with five years ago.
If the Volkov syndicate was involved, playing by corporate rules was a death sentence. Sarah needed to hit the streets.
Changing out of her conspicuous uniform into a dark hoodie, jeans, and a leather jacket, she slipped out through the hotel’s loading dock. The night air was crisp, carrying the scent of rain and exhaust.
Her destination was a rundown apartment building in the Narrows, a district far removed from the glittering high-rises of her father’s empire. This was where Julian’s ex-girlfriend, a cocktail waitress named Chloe, lived. If Julian had fled, Chloe might know where he stashed his fallback gear.
Sarah picked the flimsy lock on Chloe’s door with a hairpin—a trick she’d learned from Marcus during a corporate espionage training seminar. The apartment was dark and smelled of stale smoke.
“Chloe?” Sarah whispered, drawing a sleek taser from her pocket.
Silence.
She moved through the cramped living room. The place had been tossed. Drawers were pulled out, sofa cushions slashed. Someone had beaten her here.
In the bedroom, Sarah found Chloe cowering in the closet, clutching a baseball bat, tears streaking her makeup.
“Don’t hurt me!” Chloe sobbed.
“Chloe, it’s Sarah Vance. I’m not here to hurt you. Who did this?”
“Two men,” Chloe stammered, lowering the bat. “Accents. Russian, maybe? They were looking for Julian. They said he took something that belonged to them.”
“Julian double-crossed the Volkovs?” Sarah asked, a spark of hope igniting. If Julian had leverage on them, that leverage could be her salvation.
The docks were shrouded in a thick, rolling fog that muffled the sounds of the crashing waves. Sarah crouched behind a rusted shipping container, the cold steel biting through her jacket. Marcus crouched beside her, a suppressed Glock 19 in his hand.
“This is a terrible idea,” Marcus whispered. “We don’t have a flash drive. We don’t even know what’s on it.”
“It’s proof,” Sarah whispered back. “Julian kept insurance. If we can grab him before the Volkovs do, we can force him to confess to the forgery.”
Headlights pierced the fog. A sleek, black SUV rolled onto the wooden pier, its tires crunching on the gravel. The doors opened, and two men stepped out. It wasn’t the Volkov enforcers.
It was Elena Rostov.
She was dressed in tactical black, her red lips the only splash of color in the gloom. Beside her stood Victor, the enforcer from the security footage.
A moment later, a small motorboat cut its engine and drifted to the edge of the pier. Julian, looking disheveled and terrified, climbed up the ladder. He was clutching a small silver flash drive.
“You’re late, Julian,” Elena called out, her voice echoing over the water.
“I have the drive,” Julian shouted back, his voice trembling. “The unedited video of the signature swap, the offshore routing numbers, all of it. Now give me my money so I can disappear.”
Elena smiled. It was the same venomous smile she had given Sarah in the lobby. “Of course, darling.”
She nodded to Victor.
“No!” Sarah hissed. The flash drive—her only proof—was sitting fifty feet away on the exposed pier.
Victor walked forward to retrieve it.
„Deck mich“, sagte Sarah und ignorierte Marcus’ verzweifeltes Greifen nach ihrem Arm. Sie sprintete hinter dem Schiffscontainer hervor und warf sich hinter einen Stapel Holzpaletten, gerade als Victor sich bückte.
Marcus zögerte nicht. Er lehnte sich vor und feuerte zwei Warnschüsse in die Motorhaube des Geländewagens.
„Hinterhalt!“, rief Victor, ließ die Fahrt abrupt ab und suchte hinter dem Fahrzeug Deckung. Elena schrie auf und kletterte auf den Rücksitz.
Schüsse fielen. Die scharfen, schnellen Schüsse von Victors Sturmgewehr zersplitterten das Holz von Sarahs Deckung. Holzsplitter regneten auf ihr Haar. Sie blieb geduckt liegen, ihr Herz hämmerte in rasendem Rhythmus gegen ihre Rippen.
“Sarah, fahr los!”, rief Marcus über den Lärm hinweg und eröffnete Deckungsfeuer.
Sarah sah den silbernen Schimmer der Einfahrt auf den Dielen, angestrahlt von den Scheinwerfern des Geländewagens. Sie war drei Meter entfernt. Drei Meter freies Gelände.
Sie holte tief Luft und visualisierte den Weg. Sie sprang aus der Deckung hervor, hechtete und glitt über das nasse, glatte Holz. Sie spürte das kalte Metall des Laufwerks in ihrer Handfläche und ballte die Faust darum, genau in dem Moment, als eine Kugel den Ärmel ihrer Jacke durchschlug und ihre Schulter streifte.
Der Schmerz flammte auf, heiß und stechend, doch das Adrenalin übertönte ihn. Sie rollte sich ab, kam auf ein Knie und kletterte schnell hinter die Paletten zurück.
