Chapter 15 - The Devil's Bargain
Viktor stared at the small, lethal pill as if it were a beautiful, priceless diamond.
He knew Arthur would not let him die quickly; the syndicate preferred agonizing, prolonged psychological torture.
"The ledger is not digital, Sarah," Viktor whispered, his voice trembling slightly.
"Arthur trusts no computer. It is a physical, handwritten book kept in a biometric safe inside his private mountain compound."
He gave me the exact GPS coordinates of a heavily fortified luxury estate in the deep wilderness of Montana.
He described the security grid, the mercenary patrol routes, and the blind spots in the thermal camera network.
"The safe requires his retinal scan and a secondary vocal authorization," Viktor explained, coughing violently.
I slipped the tiny cyanide capsule through the narrow, secure air-vent slot at the bottom of the glass wall.
Viktor picked it up immediately, offering me a final, mocking salute before placing it on his tongue.
I did not stay to watch the poison work its brutal magic.
I turned my back on the monster who had terrorized my mother and walked calmly out of the detention block.
I climbed back into the transport van and drove out of the facility just as the alarm sirens began to wail behind us.
We drove non-stop for two days, trading the transport van for a battered pickup truck in a dusty Wyoming salvage yard.
As we neared the Montana border, I pulled off into a dense, heavily wooded clearing to prepare for the final assault.
I laid out my entire arsenal on the tailgate of the truck, checking every single mechanism, magazine, and optic.
My mother picked up a spare Kevlar vest and began strapping it tightly over her chest.
I tried to stop her, telling her the compound was guarded by professional killers and she needed to stay in the truck.
She looked at me with the exact same fierce, unyielding determination my father used to have.
"Arthur Vance sat at my dining room table and ate the food I cooked, knowing he had murdered my husband," she said coldly.
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She picked up a compact, nine-millimeter sidearm and racked the slide with absolute, terrifying precision.
"I am not waiting in the truck, Sarah. We are finishing this together."
