Chapter 15 - The Devil's Bargain
I stared at Seraphina’s arrogant, mocking expression, refusing to let her see an ounce of desperation.
"I can offer you the one thing your lawyers cannot buy," I replied smoothly, my voice perfectly level. "Revenge."
Seraphina’s smile faltered slightly, her dark eyes narrowing in sudden suspicion.
I explained that Carlo was actually Alexei Volkov, Ivan’s bastard son, and he was the one who had tipped off the federal authorities to arrest her on the bridge.
Carlo had used her to eliminate me, and then immediately discarded her to rot in a concrete cell for the rest of her life.
I watched the muscles in Seraphina's jaw clench violently as the absolute reality of her betrayal sank in.
She had played a masterful game of chess for two years, only to be outsmarted by a ghost in her own ranks.
"If Carlo gets his hands on that ledger, he becomes untouchable. But if I get it first, I will tear his empire apart piece by piece," I promised.
Seraphina leaned back in her metal chair, weighing her bitter hatred for me against her burning desire to destroy the man who betrayed her.
After a long, agonizing minute of silence, she leaned forward and tapped her chained fingers against the glass.
"Ivan did not trust banks, Julian. He trusted the cold, unforgiving ocean," she whispered into the phone.
She revealed that the ledger was stored on an illegal, heavily armed offshore oil rig situated in international waters just off the northern coast.
The rig was disguised as an abandoned drilling platform, but it actually housed the Volkov cartel's primary data servers.
"There is a biometric lock on the server vault," Seraphina added with a cruel smirk. "It requires Ivan's retinal scan to open."
"Ivan is dead at the bottom of a river," I stated flatly.
"Then you better hope his bastard son has his father's eyes, Julian. Otherwise, you are breaking into a steel coffin for nothing," she laughed.
I hung up the phone without another word, leaving the visitation room with the critical intelligence I needed.
When I returned to the motel, I laid out a stolen nautical map on the cheap wooden table.
Grace looked at the coordinates Seraphina had provided, her brow furrowing in deep concern.
"An offshore rig is completely isolated. If we get pinned down out there, there is absolutely nowhere to run," Grace warned.
I reached into my bag and pulled out two suppressed tactical submachine guns, loading the magazines with armor-piercing rounds.
"We are not going there to run, Grace. We are going there to cut the head off the snake," I replied fiercely.
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I called an old smuggler contact and purchased a stealth speedboat that could bypass marine radar systems.
It was time to take the war directly to Carlo's front door.
