Chapter 9 - IN THE VIPER'S NEST
With the city descending into chaos and the Volkovs distracted by the sudden resurrection of the Mercer syndicate, Alexei Volkov’s high-rise fortress was left vulnerable. Most of his heavily armed guards had been deployed to the streets to quell the uprising.
It was time to cut the head off the snake.
We left Audrey in the care of Jax and three heavily armed Mercer loyalists in a secure underground vault. It was the hardest thing I had ever done, prying her little fingers off my sleeve.
I will come back, I signed to her, kissing her forehead. I promise.
Dominic and I approached the Volkov tower just before dawn. Dressed in stolen maintenance uniforms, we bypassed the skeleton crew at the front desk and infiltrated the service elevator.
The tension in the cramped elevator car was palpable. Dominic stood close to me, his presence a heavy, comforting weight. He reached out, his hand wrapping around mine, intertwining our fingers.
"If this goes south," Dominic said, his voice a low rumble, "you run. You take Audrey, you use the Black Book, and you disappear."
"I stopped running the day you walked into Aurelia, Dominic," I said, looking up into his storm-grey eyes. "We end this today. Together."
He leaned down, and in the claustrophobic space of the rising elevator, he kissed me. It wasn't gentle; it was fierce, desperate, a collision of two souls standing on the edge of oblivion. It tasted of adrenaline, fear, and a profound, undeniable love.
The elevator dinged. Floor 45.
We stepped out, weapons drawn. The penthouse floor was opulent, all marble and glass, a stark contrast to the blood money that bought it.
We moved silently through the corridors, dispatching the two guards outside the server room with synchronized, suppressed shots. I went to work on the biometric lock, using a bypass scrambler Jax had provided. With a soft click, the heavy door swung open.
I rushed to the terminal, plugging in the extraction drive. "It's going to take three minutes to download the ledgers and wipe his servers."
"We don't have three minutes," a cold, heavily accented voice echoed from behind us.
We turned to see Alexei Volkov standing in the doorway, flanked by four massive bodyguards. Alexei was an older man, distinguished, wearing a bespoke suit, but his eyes were the dead, soulless eyes of a shark. He held a custom, gold-plated revolver, pointed directly at Dominic’s chest.
"Dominic Vale," Alexei sneered. "And the little Mercer ghost. You caused quite a mess in my city tonight."
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"It's not your city, Alexei," Dominic growled, stepping slightly in front of me, shielding my body with his own. "And you're about to lose all your money."
Alexei laughed. "Money is paper. Power is blood. Kill them."
