Chapter 6 - The Voice on the Line
I walked cautiously down the ruined staircase and picked up the ringing phone.
I pressed the device to my ear and listened to the heavy breathing on the other end.
Kolov’s deep, heavily accented voice echoed through the speaker.
He praised my tactical skills and congratulated me on surviving the siege.
I demanded he tell me where he was keeping the innocent family.
Kolov laughed softly, the sound sending a chill down my spine.
He told me the assault on my mansion was nothing more than a noisy distraction.
He instructed me to walk to the shattered window and look south toward the financial district.
I stepped over the broken glass and stared at the towering Manhattan skyline.
A massive fireball suddenly erupted into the night sky, turning the dark clouds a glowing, violent orange.
The shockwave rattled the remaining windows of my estate seconds later.
Kolov proudly announced that he had just detonated a bomb inside my primary underground casino.
He had wiped out fifty million dollars of my untraceable cash in a single instant.
I gripped the phone tightly, vowing to cut his heart out with a rusty knife.
Kolov sighed and told me I was missing the most important part of the tragedy.
He claimed Emma’s paralyzed brother had been strapped to the center of the explosive charge.
Kolov hung up the phone, leaving me standing in the cold wind.
I walked back upstairs and told Emma exactly what had happened.
She screamed in absolute agony, collapsing onto the floor and tearing at her own hair.
I held her tightly, feeling her tears soak through my blood-stained shirt.
I swore on my life that I would make Kolov pay in blood.
Marco rushed into the room, holding a burnt piece of fabric he had retrieved from our scouts at the casino rubble.
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He held up the fabric and revealed that the brother was never in the building.
The bomb had been strapped to a medical dummy dressed in hospital clothes.
