Chapter 6 - The Sister's Ransom
The masked man violently yanked Chloe's hair, forcing her to look directly into the camera lens.
She sobbed uncontrollably, begging me to give them whatever they wanted so she wouldn't die.
The video ended abruptly, leaving the dark parking garage eerily silent.
Despite her betrayal, Chloe was still my blood, and I couldn't let her be murdered for Julian's sins.
Marcus warned me that it was a clear trap designed to separate us from our only leverage.
He argued that if we surrendered the encrypted hard drive, Julian would wipe out the tracking data and disappear forever.
I looked at the hard drive, realizing it was the only thing keeping my daughter within reach.
I told Marcus we were going to save Chloe, but we were going to do it on my terms.
I used my laptop to create a perfect digital clone of the hard drive, embedding a vicious malware virus inside the copied files.
I sent a text message back to the masked man, agreeing to meet at an abandoned subway station in exactly one hour.
Marcus drove us to the location, killing the headlights as we rolled into the dark, graffiti-covered alleyway.
We crept down the concrete stairs, our footsteps echoing softly in the damp, underground tunnels.
The masked man was standing on the platform, holding a large knife to Chloe's throat.
I walked out from the shadows alone, holding the fake hard drive up for him to see.
He demanded that I toss it across the tracks, his grip tightening maliciously on my sister.
I threw the drive perfectly, watching it slide across the dirty concrete tiles to stop at his feet.
He bent down to pick it up, making the fatal mistake of taking his eyes off Marcus's elevated position.
Marcus fired a single suppressed shot from the upper catwalk, striking the kidnapper directly in the shoulder.
The man screamed and dropped the knife, stumbling backward onto the dangerous subway tracks.
I ran forward and quickly untied Chloe, ignoring her frantic apologies as I dragged her to safety.
She collapsed in my arms, revealing that Julian had completely abandoned her the moment she became a liability.
She told me that Julian didn't take the baby to the Volkov compound to sell her.
May you like
He took the baby there as a biological collateral offering for a massive gambling debt he owed the syndicate.
If the syndicate didn't receive their required payment by sunrise, they were going to harvest Maya's organs for the black market.
