Chapter 10 - The Vow
The masked soldier kept his heavy rifle leveled directly at Victoria’s heart.
Victoria held Maya tightly, bracing for the fatal shot that would end everything.
Instead, the soldier pulled down his mask, revealing the bruised and bloody face of Leo the hacker.
"Told you I wouldn't sell you out, Vic," Leo panted, offering her his free hand.
He had used the ten million dollar bounty advance to hire a rogue private military outfit to rescue them instead.
The intense gunfire in the alley began to die down as Leo's heavily armed team completely overwhelmed Richard's panicked mercenaries.
Richard tried to crawl away into the shadows, but a massive operative slammed a rifle butt into his jaw, knocking him out cold.
The distant, rising wail of police sirens indicated that the real authorities were finally on their way.
"Give me the drive, I'll make sure it goes straight to the FBI cyber division," Leo said.
Victoria pressed the bloody silver USB drive into his hand, knowing her father's criminal empire was finally finished.
Six months later, the long nightmare was officially over.
Victoria stood on the sunlit balcony of her newly purchased estate in California, peacefully sipping herbal tea.
Richard and her father were both sitting in federal maximum-security prisons, facing multiple life sentences without parole.
The Hale family fortune had been heavily fined by the government, but Victoria had salvaged enough clean money to start over comfortably.
She smiled as she watched Maya running happily across the perfectly manicured lawn, chasing a golden retriever puppy.
The legal adoption papers had been fully finalized just yesterday.
Victoria had finally kept the promise she made to her sister, providing Maya with a safe, beautiful, and loving home.
Everything was finally perfect.
Later that night, Victoria tucked Maya into her large, comfortable bed and turned off the reading lamp.
She walked back to her master bedroom, feeling completely at peace with her new life.
Suddenly, her highly secure, encrypted private phone buzzed loudly on the nightstand.
Victoria frowned and unlocked the bright screen to check the incoming message.
It was a high-resolution photograph of Maya sleeping peacefully in the exact bed she was in right now.
The angle of the photo made it horrifyingly clear that it was taken from inside Maya's bedroom closet.
May you like
Beneath the terrifying image was a single, chilling typed sentence.
"We aren't done yet."
