Chapter 7 - The Hostage Exchange
The sight of my innocent son held at knifepoint completely paralyzed my lungs and stopped my heart.
The masked man leaned into the camera, his voice mechanically altered to disguise his true identity.
He calmly informed me that my trusted security detail had been slaughtered entirely just twenty minutes ago.
He demanded that I immediately turn the pursuit jet around and land at a specific set of coordinates in the desert.
If I did not comply within sixty seconds, he promised to mail Ethan back to me in several small wooden boxes.
I screamed into the phone, begging the monster to take my life and my entire fortune in exchange for my child's safety.
Marcus violently snatched the phone from my trembling hands, his face completely devoid of any human emotion.
He boldly told the kidnapper that we were not altering our flight path, calling the man's terrifying bluff without hesitation.
The masked man laughed darkly, raising the tactical knife higher until the sharp blade pressed into Ethan's delicate skin.
Before the blade could draw blood, a loud gunshot echoed through the video feed, causing the masked man to collapse instantly.
The camera feed tumbled to the ground, capturing the boots of a woman stepping over the kidnapper's bleeding body.
Brooke leaned down and picked up the phone, her face covered in dirt and her designer dress torn to shreds.
She looked directly into the lens and told me she had just saved my son's life by executing the cartel guard.
Brooke revealed that Richard had completely abandoned her to the authorities, freezing all her accounts and leaving her to die.
She was seeking absolute vengeance, and she knew the only way to destroy Richard was to keep my son alive.
Brooke offered to safely deliver Ethan to a neutral federal location, but she demanded something massive in return.
She wanted me to transfer ten million dollars into an untraceable cryptocurrency wallet so she could disappear forever.
I immediately agreed to her terms, authorizing the massive digital transfer using my secure banking application.
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Brooke smiled triumphantly, promising to drop Ethan at a specific police precinct within the hour.
Just as she turned to pick up my crying son, the video feed captured a red laser sight appearing directly on the center of her forehead.
