Chapter 5 - THE VAULT OF SINS
"What's wrong?" Claire asked, her smile freezing as she felt the desperate grip I had on her arm.
"Marcus," I muttered, steering her toward the side exit, away from the grand foyer where security was thickest. "He checked his tablet. He knows the network was breached. We have a five-minute head start before he locks down the hotel."
Her eyes hardened. "My contact needs ten minutes to download the files from your father's private server. We need to delay them."
"Are you insane?" I hissed as we burst through the heavy fire doors into the concrete stairwell. "If they catch us, they'll kill us both and dump our bodies in the lake! We are leaving."
"Julian, listen to me!" She yanked her arm free, pinning me against the cold cinderblock wall. Her proximity was overwhelming, the scent of her expensive perfume mixing with the sharp tang of adrenaline. "The digital files are only half the puzzle. My father kept a physical ledger. A handwritten journal detailing every bribe, every assassination, every drop of blood that built Vanguard. Without that book, the digital files are circumstantial. High-priced lawyers will claim they were fabricated."
"And where is this imaginary book?" I demanded, my panic rising as I heard the faint, echoing sound of heavy boots on the stairs several floors below us.
"It's not imaginary. It's in the biometric vault in your father's home office. The estate in the Hamptons."
I stared at her in disbelief. "The Hamptons? We are in Chicago! And even if we could get there, the vault requires his thumbprint and a retinal scan."
"I know," she said calmly, reaching into her small clutch purse. She pulled out a small, specialized silicone mold and a high-definition contact lens floating in a vial of saline. "Which is why I lifted his print off his whiskey glass tonight, and I hacked his medical records for a retinal map. But we need to get to the private airstrip tonight, before he realizes what we're doing."
The audacity of her plan was staggering. She wasn't just a survivor; she was an apex predator who had spent fifteen years plotting the perfect heist. Before I could respond, the stairwell door two flights down crashed open.
"Sir! They're in the east stairwell!" a guard's voice echoed upward.
"Run," Claire commanded.
We tore up the stairs, bypassing the lobby and heading for the roof. My lungs burned, my tuxedo feeling like a straightjacket. Claire kicked off her high heels, sprinting in bare feet, her emerald gown trailing behind her like a ghost. We burst onto the gravel roof of the Drake Hotel just as the heavens opened up, unleashing a torrential Chicago downpour.
"The fire escape on the north side!" I yelled over the thunder, grabbing her hand. We slipped and slid across the wet roof, reaching the rusted iron ladders. We scrambled down, our expensive clothes ruined, soaked to the bone. We hit the alleyway just as Marcus and his men burst onto the roof above us.
"There!" a voice shouted from the darkness of the alley. Two of Vanguard's private security goons stepped out from behind a dumpster, drawing their weapons.
I froze, terrified. But Claire didn't hesitate. With terrifying speed and precision, she dropped her clutch, drew the suppressed pistol from her thigh holster, and fired two rapid shots. Pfft. Pfft. The guards dropped, screaming, clutching their kneecaps. She hadn't killed them. She had disabled them, just as she promised she would do to me.
"Move!" she screamed, shoving me toward a black sedan idling at the end of the alley. It was her getaway driver, her contact.
We threw ourselves into the backseat as the car tires squealed, peeling out into the slick city streets just as Marcus emerged from the fire escape, firing blindly into the rain. We were safe, for the moment. But the war had officially begun.
Four hours later, we were flying over the Atlantic seaboard in a stolen private jet, courtesy of Claire's mysterious, well-funded underground contacts. I sat across from her in the dimly lit cabin. She was bandaging a scrape on her arm, looking exhausted but fiercely determined.
"Who are you working with, Claire?" I asked softly, the reality of my new life settling heavily upon my shoulders. "This isn't a one-woman operation."
She looked up, her eyes softening just a fraction. "There are a lot of people whose lives your father destroyed, Julian. I just happened to be the one who brought them all together. We are the ghosts of Vanguard. And tonight, we're taking our lives back."
When we landed, the sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon. The Hamptons estate was a sprawling, modern fortress of glass and steel, perched on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Because I was the heir, my biometrics allowed us past the outer perimeter gates. We moved silently through the manicured gardens, slipping through a side entrance I used as a teenager when sneaking out.
My father's study was exactly as I remembered it: cold, imposing, smelling of rich leather and expensive scotch. The vault was hidden behind a false wallpane. Claire moved with practiced efficiency. She pressed the silicone thumbprint to the scanner, then carefully inserted the biometric contact lens over her own eye and leaned into the retinal reader.
The machine beeped. A green light flashed. The heavy steel door hissed open.
"Got it," she breathed, stepping into the small, heavily armored room. She bypassed stacks of gold bullion and bearer bonds, reaching for a small, worn leather book sitting on a velvet pedestal.
She opened it. Her breath hitched. I stepped behind her, looking over her shoulder. The pages were filled with my father's meticulous handwriting, detailing assassinations, bribes, and the exact coordinates of unmarked graves—including Arthur Vance's.
"We have it," I whispered, feeling a profound sense of horror and vindication.
May you like
"Yes, you do," a cold, grating voice said from the doorway.
We whirled around. Standing in the entrance to the study, a massive tactical shotgun leveled directly at Claire's chest, was Marcus. And behind him, flanked by half a dozen heavily armed men, was my father.
