Chapter 5 - The Genetic Fuse
I held the phone tightly against my ear, my knuckles turning white, but I didn't let my breath hitch. I refused to give the voice on the other end the satisfaction of hearing my panic.
"You're bluffing," I said coldly.
"Am I?" Lord Julian’s voice purred over the line. "Ask yourself, Victoria—why did Preston insist on harvesting your bone marrow specifically? Do you really believe Sienna Miller had a rare blood disorder? Sienna was a dummy target. A distraction. The marrow extraction procedure was designed to remove your mutated stem cells before the synthetic pathogen we infected you with three years ago fully activated."
My mind raced back to three years ago—the week after my father’s plane crashed. I had collapsed from severe grief and dehydration, and was admitted to a private clinic in upstate New York. A clinic recommended by Preston Vance.
They had administered a 'vitamin IV drip' for four days.
"The pathogen is dormant until triggered by a specific bio-chemical frequency," Lord Julian continued smoothly. "In four days, the synthetic strain will begin dissolving your vascular lining from the inside out. You will experience organ failure within forty-eight hours. The only known stabilizer is held in my private vault in London."
"What do you want?" I demanded, my mind already calculating three steps ahead.
"I want my sixty billion dollars," Lord Julian replied. "And I want the master decryption key to your father's global shipping network. Bring them to the private charity gala at the Grand Palais in Paris this Saturday night. Come alone. If you bring federal agents, or if Marcus Thorne tries to breach our perimeter, the trigger signal will be broadcasted instantly."
CLICK.
The line went dead.
I slowly lowered the receiver, placing it back on the cradle.
Marcus stood up from his chair, his hand gripping his holster, his face pale. "Victoria? What did he say? Who was that?"
"It was Lord Julian," I said softly, standing up from my chair and walking toward the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out over the sprawling grid of New York City. "The man behind the Vance family."
"What does he want?"
"He wants the sixty billion dollars," I said, turning my head to look at Marcus. "And he thinks he’s infected me with a synthetic biological weapon."
Marcus’s eyes widened in horror. "A bio-weapon?! We need to get you to a military hospital right now! We need to run a full blood screen!"
"No," I said, a dark, dangerous smile spreading across my lips. "We don't need a military hospital, Marcus. Because Lord Julian made a fatal mistake."
Marcus frowned, confused. "What mistake?"
"He assumed I spent the last three years just investigating the Vance family's finances," I said, pulling out a small silver drive from my jacket pocket and tossing it onto the desk. "Two years ago, when I realized Preston was giving me suspicious 'vitamin drips' at that private clinic, I secretly took a sample of the IV fluid and sent it to my father's clandestine bio-tech research lab in Tokyo."
Marcus gasped. "The Tokyo lab? The one your father built under the radar?"
"They isolated the synthetic pathogen eighteen months ago, Marcus," I said, my voice dripping with cold, calculated victory. "They developed the neural antibody cure over a year ago. I've been fully immunized against their little bio-weapon for six months."
Marcus stared at me in absolute, speechless awe. "You... you knew all along?"
"I knew," I replied, walking over to my leather chair and sitting down. "Lord Julian thinks he has me trapped on a leash. He thinks I'm going to Paris as a desperate victim begging for my life."
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I leaned back, resting my chin on my hands, my hazel eyes burning with a fierce, lethal ambition.
"Set up the flight to Paris, Marcus," I ordered. "Assemble our elite tactical team. We're going to the Grand Palais. And this time, I’m not just destroying a bloodline—I’m burning The Apex Group to the ground."
