Chapter 9 - The Intervention
I stared down the dark barrel of Selina’s gun, the roaring flames of the burning mansion surrounding us.
She had played every single person in this house with absolute, terrifying perfection.
"The police will never believe your story, Selina," I choked out, trying to buy myself mere seconds of time.
She laughed a high, grating sound over the crackle of the raging fire.
"I already called them and gave a tearful statement about a domestic dispute gone horribly wrong," she mocked.
Selina stepped closer, her finger slowly tightening on the trigger.
"Goodbye, Mabel," she whispered.
Before the hammer could drop, the shattered patio doors were kicked completely off their hinges.
A team of heavily armed, tactical SWAT agents poured into the burning kitchen, assault rifles raised.
"FBI! Drop your weapon immediately!" the lead agent roared, aiming a laser sight directly at Selina’s chest.
Selina froze in absolute shock, her arrogant smile completely melting away into sheer panic.
She dropped the pistol, raising her hands high in the air as agents aggressively swarmed her.
An agent slammed her face-first onto the marble floor, locking heavy steel handcuffs tightly around her wrists.
I lay on the ground, utterly confused as to how the Federal Bureau of Investigation had arrived so quickly.
A tall man in a dark suit walked calmly through the smoke, kneeling gently beside me.
It was Elias Thorne, the rival corporate CEO I had contacted days earlier.
"I told you I was going to help you, Mabel," Elias said, offering me a rare, genuine smile.
"But I lost the USB drive with the evidence," I whispered, wincing in intense pain.
Elias chuckled deeply and shook his head.
"I did not need your USB drive, Mabel, I needed you to distract him while my team hacked his offshore servers directly," he explained.
Elias had used my phone call to trace the IP address of Flynn’s hidden network.
He had handed mountains of undeniable evidence over to the federal authorities hours ago.
Paramedics rushed into the kitchen with a stretcher, carefully lifting my broken body to safety.
They carried me out to the front lawn, where dozens of police cruisers and fire trucks were assembled.
I watched as FBI agents dragged a handcuffed, unconscious Flynn out of the burning wreckage.
Selina was thrown roughly into the back of a federal transport van, screaming curses at anyone who would listen.
Their empire of lies, manipulation, and violence had completely burned to the ground.
The lead paramedic placed an oxygen mask over my face and smiled kindly down at me.
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"You are safe now, Mrs. Vance, we are taking you to the hospital," he reassured me.
I closed my eyes, finally allowing the heavy, comforting darkness of exhaustion to take me away.
