Chapter 98 - The War Council at Ten Thousand Feet
Thirty minutes later, the Sovereign command jet sliced through the upper stratosphere, racing south away from the frozen Arctic circle.
Inside the main cabin, all four of my children surrounded the circular holographic war table. Mia was wrapped in a cashmere blanket, sipping warm tea, but her eyes never left the tactical display. Beside her, Liam, Leo, and Lucas worked with terrifying, cold efficiency, coordinating the counter-offensive across three continents.
"Arthur Vance left behind a dead-man's switch," Liam explained, projecting a vast web of corporate ownership trees into the air. "When his biometric pulse ceased beneath Citadel Alpha, the system automatically transferred control of his shadow accounts to an entity known as The Apex Directorate. Headquartered in a high-security offshore fortress in the Baltic Sea."
"They're using our own corporate buyout protocols against us," Leo added, showing our plunging stock tickers. "They claim that Vanguard’s acquisition of Vance Dynasty assets was fraudulent. International regulatory bodies in Brussels are already freezing our clearing accounts."
"They think they can starve us of capital while we're in the air," Lucas said, his knuckles cracking. "They think without cash reserves, our private security forces and defense fleets will disband."
May you like
I stood at the head of the table, looking at my four children. They were no longer the frightened, protected innocents I had hidden away years ago when Arthur tossed me into the street with nothing but twelve million dollars and contempt. They were the architects of an empire.
"They made one fatal miscalculation," I said softly, touching the encrypted drive I had ripped from Arthur’s chest. "Arthur didn't just store their access keys on this drive. He kept their extortion files. He kept the ledgers of every bribe, every assassination, and every treasonous transaction the Directorate ever authorized."
