Chapter 22 - The Black SiteThe brutal descent lasted for twelve agonizing minutes. We plummeted through the cloud cover, the engines screaming in protest as the unseen pilot pulled the jet out of its dive at the very last second.
I held Sofia and Elara tightly against my chest, bracing for an impact that never came. Instead, the landing gear deployed with a heavy thud, and the wheels hit solid ground. We were thrown violently against our harnesses as the plane hit the brakes, skidding across a wet runway before finally coming to a dead, silent halt.
The amber emergency lights flickered back on. Outside the windows, there was nothing but blinding, high-intensity halogen floodlights cutting through a thick, freezing fog. We weren't in the Mediterranean. We were somewhere cold, desolate, and heavily militarized.
"Stay behind me," I whispered to Sofia, pulling a concealed ceramic blade from the heel of my boot. It was the only weapon that could pass through our own airport security scanners.
The main cabin door hissed, the pressurized seal breaking. The heavy door lowered to the tarmac.
A squad of armed mercenaries in unmarked, matte-black tactical gear swarmed up the stairs. They moved with the terrifying precision of Tier-One operators. Before I could even raise the blade, three laser sights were pinned to my chest.
"Drop it, Mr. Moretti," a voice commanded from the bottom of the stairs.
A woman walked up into the cabin. She was in her late fifties, with silver hair pulled into a severe bun, wearing a flawless white trench coat that practically glowed in the darkness. She didn't look like a thug. She looked like a billionaire.
"Who the hell are you?" I demanded, shielding Sofia and Elara with my body.
"My name is Victoria Sterling," she said, her voice crisp and heavily accented with aristocratic British polish. "And I represent a consortium of individuals who are very, very upset with you."
"Thorne is dead," I spat. "His network is gone."
Victoria laughed, a dry, humorless sound. "Elias Thorne was a street rat who got lucky with an algorithm. You thought you were dismantling the shadow economy? Oh, Adrian. You didn't burn down the house. You just fumigated the basement. We are the people who own the property."
She snapped her fingers. The mercenaries moved in, tearing me away from Sofia. Elara screamed, clinging to her mother's leg.
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"Don't touch them!" I roared, fighting against the tactical vests, but the butt of a rifle cracked against the back of my skull, sending me to my knees.
"You built an AI that disrupts global financial markets to fund hospitals," Victoria said, stepping over to me and looking down with pure disdain. "It's noble. It's touching. But it's costing my employers billions of dollars a week. So, here is the new reality. You are going to sign over the source code to your little fortress, or I am going to make you watch as my men throw your beautiful wife and child out of this plane at thirty thousand feet."
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