Chapter 9 - The False Truth
The silence in the forest was absolute.
Every mercenary and loyalist guard lowered their weapons, staring directly at Evelyn.
Antonio stepped away from Mercer and turned his cold, calculating gaze toward her.
Evelyn's heart hammered against her ribs as she backed away, shaking her head in desperate denial.
She screamed that she did not even know who Antonio was until she boarded that airplane.
Marco immediately raised his gun, pointing it at Evelyn's chest just as he had in the car.
He demanded she hand over the phone in her pocket.
Evelyn threw her phone into the mud at Marco's feet, begging them to check the call logs themselves.
One of Antonio's tech specialists retrieved the phone and connected it to a portable decryption tablet.
The specialist's face went pale as lines of data scrolled across his screen.
He looked up and confirmed that a heavily encrypted signal had been broadcast from Evelyn's device exactly five minutes before the poison was deployed.
The signal contained the activation codes for Mercer's hit squad.
Antonio drew his own weapon, the betrayal burning violently in his eyes.
Evelyn dropped to her knees in the mud, crying and swearing she was innocent.
She realized how perfectly she had been set up from the very beginning.
Her photo in the case, her presence on the flight, the phone call threatening her sister—it was all designed to make her the perfect patsy.
Before Antonio could pull the trigger, Mercer began laughing again from the ground.
Mercer sneered and told Antonio that he was always too easily manipulated by his emotions.
Mercer confessed that he cloned Evelyn's phone signal using a proximity scanner hidden in his medical bag on the plane.
He explained that Evelyn truly was innocent, just a convenient pawn meant to distract Antonio from the real mastermind.
Antonio slowly lowered his gun and demanded Mercer name his true employer.
Mercer smiled bitterly and said the name Lorenzo Vitelli.
Antonio's brother.
The revelation hit Antonio so hard he physically stumbled backward, supported only by Marco.
Lorenzo had orchestrated the entire coup to seize control of the shipping empire.
Antonio's grief immediately transformed into a terrifying, icy rage.
He ordered his men to throw Mercer into the trunk of a car and execute him later.
He told Marco to secure a private jet to New York immediately.
Antonio declared that his brother was going to die before sunrise.
Two hours later, they were standing on the tarmac of a private airfield, preparing to board a sleek Gulfstream jet.
Marco received a secure message on his tablet and froze.
He showed the screen to Antonio, his face devoid of all expression.
Lorenzo Vitelli was already dead.
He had been found murdered in his Manhattan penthouse thirty minutes ago, shot twice in the chest.
Antonio stared at the report, entirely bewildered by this new development.
Evelyn read the rest of the police dispatch over Marco's shoulder and felt the blood freeze in her veins.
The NYPD had already issued an emergency arrest warrant for Lorenzo's suspected killer.
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The police had crystal-clear security footage of the assassin entering Lorenzo's building at the exact time of the murder.
The woman in the security footage was Evelyn Foster.
