Chapter 26 - The Black Bourse
Night fell over Massachusetts Bay like a funeral shroud.
*The Obsidian Queen* was not an ordinary luxury yacht. It was a 300-foot floating citadel, equipped with military-grade radar, underwater sonar defenses, and twenty heavily armed private military contractors patrolling its teak decks.
Beneath the main deck lay the "Black Bourse"—a covert, untraceable auction floor where Victoria Vance was currently liquidating Catherine’s illicit foreign assets to the highest bidders in the global underworld.
Two miles out, beneath the freezing black waves, Bishop and I moved through the water using closed-circuit rebreathers, leaving zero bubbles on the surface.
We breached the surface beneath the yacht’s stern swim platform.
I hauled myself silently onto the teak deck, water cascading off my black neoprene dive suit. I unholstered my suppressed tactical pistol, signaling Bishop to take the port security team while I breached the central salon.
Through the smoked glass of the observation deck, I saw them: twelve ultra-wealthy warlords and corrupt financiers seated around an illuminated table, bidding on digital flash drives containing Vance military defense codes.
And at the head of the room stood Victoria Vance, wearing a tailored crimson gown, holding an encrypted remote detonator in her gloved hand.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Victoria’s cold voice filtered through the deck ventilation. "With the Vance domestic assets frozen, these proprietary Pentagon drone algorithms are now exclusive commodities. The starting bid is fifty million."
I placed a high-yield breaching charge against the reinforced glass frame.
*Three. Two. One.*
The explosion blew the glass inward in a blinding flash of concussive force and shattering crystal.
The room plunged into chaos. The buyers shrieked, diving under tables as smoke filled the salon.
Victoria’s private guards drew their weapons, but I entered through the breach like a wrathful phantom.
My suppressed pistol fired in rhythmic, lethal cadence. Four guards dropped in four seconds, clean center-mass and headshots. Bishop swept in from the starboard entrance, his shotgun roaring, blowing two more heavy enforcers backward across the shattered marble floor.
Victoria didn’t scream. She didn't panic.
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She looked directly at me through the smoke, her face twisting into a feral sneer. "You should have stayed in the cemetery with your father, Captain Sinclair."
She slammed her hand down on the remote detonator.
