Chapter 6 - The Trap is Set
Two weeks later, Julian Vance believed he was winning.
With the Carter family empire completely liquidated and Ethan sitting in a federal holding cell facing twenty years, Vance assumed the loose ends had been neatly tied up. He had no idea that my brothers had used Ethan’s encrypted burner phone to feed a slow, steady stream of disinformation directly into Vanguard Global Tactics' primary communication server in Zurich.
It was a classic counter-intelligence honey-pot operation.
I sat in the command center of Michael’s headquarters, watching the live satellite feed of a private airfield sixty miles outside Chicago. It was midnight. A sleek, private Gulfstream jet bearing Swiss registration numbers had just touched down on the tarmac.
“He took the bait,” Ryan whispered, tapping away at his keyboard as encrypted data packets pinged across the monitors. “Vance flew in personally from Geneva to salvage whatever assets were left in the Carter shell accounts before federal prosecutors seized them entirely.”
On the central screen, the cabin door of the Gulfstream opened. A tall, silver-haired man in an expensive cashmere overcoat stepped down the metal stairs, flanked by two armed security guards in tailored suits.
Julian Vance.
“Alright,” Michael said, checking the tactical loadout on his belt. “Daniel, Nathan, secure the perimeter. James, handle the federal arrest warrants we had a judge pre-sign this evening. Ryan, monitor their comms. Em and I are going to go say hello.”
My heart hammered against my ribs, but my hands were completely steady. I wore a tactical dark jacket over a reinforced vest, my hair pulled back into a tight braid.
For two years, I had been forced to play the role of the quiet, submissive, invisible wife.
Tonight, I was going to help deliver the final blow to the man who had orchestrated my nightmare.
Michael and I stepped out from the shadows of the airplane hangar just as Vance and his guards walked toward the tarmac terminal.
Vance stopped dead in his tracks, squinting through the harsh floodlights.
“Who goes there?” Vance barked, gesturing for his guards to reach for their sidearms.
“You’ve been looking for the people who dismantled your Chicago operation, Julian,” Michael said, his voice ringing out across the cold asphalt. “Allow us to introduce ourselves.”
Vance’s guards drew their weapons—but before they could clear leather, the sharp red laser dots of sniper rifles appeared instantly on their chests, courtesy of Daniel and Nathan stationed on the hangar roof.
Vance froze, his aristocratic face turning pale as he recognized Michael—and then, standing right beside him, me.
“Emily?” Vance stammered, his eyes widening in disbelief. “You... you’re supposed to be isolated. Broken.”
I stepped forward into the harsh white glare of the floodlights, my gaze fixed entirely on the man who had tried to break my life from the shadows.
“You miscalculated, Julian,” I said quietly. “You thought I was alone. You thought I had no one to protect me.”
May you like
I stepped closer, letting the floodlights illuminate the faint, fading scars visible along my neckline.
“You picked the wrong family.”
