Chapter 9 - The Final Warning
I stared at the vibrating phone sitting on the glass coffee table.
Only one person in the world possessed this highly encrypted number.
I picked it up and pressed the green button, holding the phone slowly to my ear.
"It is completely done, Gerald," I whispered softly into the receiver.
"Jack is in federal custody, and my children are safely sleeping in the next room."
There was a long, heavy silence on the other end of the line.
"Megan, listen to me very carefully," Gerald finally said, his voice completely devoid of its usual calm confidence.
"I just intercepted a classified transmission from the syndicate's inner circle."
I frowned, a cold knot of dread slowly forming tightly in the pit of my stomach.
"The syndicate is currently bankrupt, Gerald," I reminded him confidently.
"I gave the federal agents everything they need to dismantle the entire organization by tomorrow morning."
"You did not dismantle the organization, Megan," Gerald replied, his voice trembling slightly.
"You merely cut off one of its minor financial arms."
I walked over to the thick hotel curtains and pulled them tightly shut to block out the city lights.
"What are you talking about?" I demanded, gripping the phone tightly in my hand.
"The blonde woman from the airport, Chloe," Gerald explained quickly.
"She was never working for Jack, and she was never a low-level syndicate handler."
My mind raced rapidly, trying to piece the impossible puzzle together.
"Who is she?" I asked, my heart beginning to hammer violently against my ribs.
"Chloe is the personal assassin for the absolute head of the syndicate," Gerald revealed.
"She manipulated Jack purely to draw you out of your safe, suburban hiding place."
I felt the blood drain entirely from my face.
The entire affair, the fake family vacation, the life insurance policy, it was all a meticulously designed trap.
They did not want Jack's pathetic money, and they did not care about the hospital data.
They wanted me.
"They used my husband's greed just to force me back into the game," I realized aloud, horrified by the scale of the manipulation.
"Yes," Gerald confirmed softly.
"And the federal raid you just authorized? You played right into their hands."
"You eliminated their federal heat by handing over the scapegoats, leaving the true leaders completely untouched."
I paced back and forth across the luxurious carpet of the penthouse suite.
I had been so focused on punishing my cheating husband that I missed the massive shadow moving behind him.
"I need immediate extraction, Gerald," I ordered urgently.
"Send a heavily armed transport team to my location in exactly ten minutes."
"I cannot do that, Megan," Gerald whispered, a terrible sadness filling his voice.
"Why not?" I shouted, losing my absolute control for the first time tonight.
"Because they are already standing right outside my door," Gerald replied.
Before I could say another word, the sickening sound of a heavy door being kicked off its hinges echoed through the phone.
I heard the rapid, muffled burst of a suppressed automatic weapon firing.
Gerald's phone dropped heavily onto a hard floor, and the line went completely dead with a sharp click.
My oldest and most trusted friend was gone in an instant.
I stood completely frozen in the silence of the hotel room, staring at the dead phone in my hand.
The war was not over at all.
It had only just begun, and I was entirely alone.
Suddenly, the television in the penthouse suite snapped on automatically, blaring white static.
May you like
The static cleared instantly, revealing a live video feed of the very hallway directly outside my hotel room door.
A woman with beautiful blonde hair was walking slowly toward my room, carrying a large silver briefcase.
