Chapter 9 - The Flight to Nowhere
I stared directly down the dark barrel of Jax's heavy revolver, my heart hammering fiercely against my ribs.
I had completely anticipated that Vivienne would try to buy off my underground contacts to ensure my ultimate demise.
"If you pull that trigger, Jax, you will not live long enough to spend a single dime of that money," I stated calmly.
I slowly raised my left hand, revealing a small, blinking digital detonator clutched tightly in my palm.
"Before I walked into this room, I activated a dead-man's switch connected to a massive data dump on your private servers," I bluffed confidently.
"If my thumb leaves this button, every single one of your illegal cartel transactions will be sent directly to the FBI."
Jax's smug, arrogant face instantly drained of all color as he weighed the terrifying, highly realistic threat.
He slowly lowered the heavy revolver, cursing violently under his breath as he placed the weapon on the desk.
"You always were a ruthless, manipulative bastard, Adrian," Jax snarled, stepping away from the computer.
I didn't actually have a dead-man's switch, but in this dangerous world, absolute confidence was the greatest weapon.
I left the cafe and stole a parked motorcycle, speeding recklessly through the chaotic city streets toward the abandoned subway station.
I kicked the rotting wooden doors of the subway entrance completely off their rusted hinges.
I descended into the dark, echoing tunnels, using the flashlight on my phone to navigate the treacherous, crumbling stairs.
I finally found the exact basement room from the photograph, located deep inside an old, forgotten maintenance corridor.
I kicked the door open violently, fully expecting a brutal, bloody gunfight with Vivienne's hired thugs.
Instead, the room was completely empty, except for a single laptop sitting on a dirty wooden desk.
Maria was nowhere to be found, and the chair from the photograph was completely gone.
I walked cautiously toward the glowing laptop screen, my stomach tying itself into sick, terrified knots.
The screen was displaying a live, streaming video feed of Vivienne sitting comfortably in the passenger seat of a moving vehicle.
"I knew you would figure out the location, Adrian, which is exactly why I pre-recorded that entire kidnapping scenario," she laughed through the speakers.
"Maria is perfectly safe back at your mansion, completely unharmed and totally oblivious."
I smashed my fist aggressively into the brick wall, furious that I had been completely outsmarted by her cruel diversion.
"I just needed you completely distracted so I could successfully clear out the final offshore accounts," she gloated.
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She proudly held up a massive, encrypted hard drive containing over fifty million dollars of my personal fortune.
"Enjoy your dog, Adrian, because I am leaving the country right now with absolutely everything else."
