Chapter 40 - THE LEVERAGE OF BLOOD
The wind off the lake seemed to instantly freeze the blood in Elena’s veins.
"What did you say?" Alexander demanded, his voice dropping into a terrifying, homicidal rumble.
"She was wandering the city, completely traumatized, highly vulnerable," Julian explained casually, adjusting the cuffs of his overcoat. "My operatives picked her up two hours ago. She is currently secured in a secondary facility that is not on any blueprint you possess."
"If you touch her," Elena hissed, stepping forward, her eyes burning with an apocalyptic wrath, "I will peel the skin from your bones."
"I have no intention of harming my own niece," Julian replied smoothly. "In fact, I am quite impressed by her. She survived the infiltration, she seduced your brother, and she almost brought down Victor Raines. She has the Sterling ruthlessness in her blood."
Julian pulled a sleek, encrypted hard drive from his pocket and tossed it onto the wooden planks between them.
"That drive contains the routing protocols to fully decouple the Third Archive from the federal banking system," Julian commanded. "You are going to take that drive, log into the primary Sterling-Brooks mainframe, and initiate a total asset transfer of the remaining billion dollars into my offshore accounts. You will fund my exit strategy, and you will scrub my name from Gideon’s ledgers."
"And if we refuse?" Alexander asked, his hand gripping the handle of his weapon.
"If you refuse, Hannah disappears into the Third Archive forever," Julian smiled coldly. "And Caleb loses the only family he has left. Again."
Julian didn't wait for an answer. He turned and walked away into the darkness of the pier, leaving Elena and Alexander standing over the hard drive.
May you like
They had exposed the lies. They had found the truth. But as Elena looked down at the encrypted drive, she realized that the truth didn't set them free. It had just handed them an impossible choice.
Save the girl who hated them, or destroy the syndicate and watch her die.
