The night I brought my pregnant mistress

"No! Stop it! Abort!" Arthur screamed, smashing his hands desperately against the laptop keyboard.

The screen mocked him with a final, bold message: TRANSFER COMPLETE. BALANCE: $0.00.

Arthur fell back against the concrete wall, clutching his chest as if he had been shot.

The money was his god, his power, his entirely identity. Without it, he was nothing but a traitor standing in a room full of furious mercenaries.

The remaining cartel operators had watched the entire exchange.

They didn't understand the complex digital warfare, but they understood the final message on the screen. The man who had promised them millions, the man they had betrayed Hector Vargas to serve, was entirely broke.

The leader of the mercenary squad, a scarred man with cold eyes, slowly raised his assault rifle and aimed it directly at Arthur.

"You lied to us," the mercenary growled, his finger tightening on the trigger.

"Wait! I can get more! I have hidden assets!" Arthur begged, scrambling backward across the bloody floor.

"Cartel doesn't do credit," the mercenary replied.

The sound of shattering glass at the end of the hall interrupted the execution.

Dozens of heavily armored Interpol agents swarmed through the blown-out windows, rappelling down from the helicopters. They threw stun grenades into the corridor, flooding the space with blinding light and deafening noise.

"Hands in the air! Drop your weapons!" the tactical commander roared over the chaos.

The mercenaries, realizing they were completely outgunned and unpaid, instantly dropped their weapons and dropped to their knees, surrendering to the federal agents.

Arthur Vance, however, completely lost his mind.

He lunged for the dropped assault rifle at his feet, choosing suicide by cop over spending the rest of his life in a supermax prison as a penniless traitor.

Before Arthur could raise the barrel, three Interpol agents opened fire.

The betrayal ended in a hail of bullets. Arthur Vance collapsed onto the cold concrete floor, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling, his grand empire dying before it was ever born.

The tactical commander stepped over Arthur's body, his weapon trained on me.

"Lucian Moretti?" the commander asked.

I slowly raised my hands, nodding. "I'm unarmed."

The commander lowered his weapon slightly, pulling a secure satellite phone from his vest. He pressed a button and handed it to me.

"It's the Director," the commander said.

I took the phone and held it to my ear.

"Is Arthur Vance neutralized?" the Director's voice asked over the encrypted line.

"He's dead," I confirmed. "And the digital ledgers you wanted are secured on his laptop. The money has already been wired to your Treasury accounts."

"And your wife?" the Director asked.

I looked back at Eleanor. She had slumped against Victor, her face twisted in agonizing pain.

"She is delivering my child right now," I said, my voice trembling with raw emotion. "Do we have a deal, Director?"

"Interpol is instructed to treat your wife and the enforcer named Victor as protected federal assets," the Director confirmed. "They will be transported to a secure hospital, given new identities, and granted absolute freedom."

"And me?" I asked, preparing for the cage I had traded my life for.

"You are officially deceased, Mr. Moretti," the Director stated coldly. "Killed in the crossfire alongside Arthur Vance. You will be placed under indefinite, heavily monitored house arrest at a classified location in Europe. You will never contact your former associates again."