Chapter 19 - The Lazarus Trap
Chicago felt like a graveyard. The wind howling off Lake Michigan bit through my coat as I stood across the street from the towering glass skyscraper that housed the Vanguard’s legitimate corporate front. I had spent the last month dismantling a global syndicate, moving like a phantom across three continents. I was exhausted, bruised, and carrying the weight of a dozen ruined lives, but I had finally backed my father into a corner.
Victoria Sterling had gone underground after the shootout at my firm, but tracing her wasn't difficult once Eleanor and Kenji’s networks fell. She was holed up in a fortified penthouse on the Gold Coast, managing the hemorrhaging panic of the Vanguard’s remaining investors.
I didn't sneak into her penthouse. I bought the building's head of security, a man with heavy gambling debts, for a half-million dollars in untraceable crypto. At 2:00 AM, the security cameras on the penthouse floor mysteriously went offline for maintenance.
I kicked the double doors of Victoria’s suite open, the H&K leveled perfectly. But the room was empty. There was no security detail. There were no panicked documents being shredded. The only light came from a single lamp illuminating a massive dining table.
Sitting at the head of the table, sipping a glass of bourbon, was Victoria. She didn't look like a woman whose empire was collapsing. She looked incredibly bored.
"You're late, Evelyn," Victoria drawled, swirling the amber liquid in her glass. "Your father bet you would have breached the perimeter by midnight. I suppose even prodigies need sleep."
"Where is he?" I demanded, keeping the gun trained on her forehead, my finger resting heavily on the trigger.
Victoria laughed, a harsh, grating sound. "You’ve done exactly what Arthur wanted. You cleaned house. Eleanor was weak. Kenji was getting sloppy. You pruned the dead branches of the Vanguard with far more efficiency than the Architect ever could. Arthur is thrilled. He’s ready to welcome you to the throne."
"I didn't come to inherit a throne. I came to burn it," I snarled, stepping closer.
"Did you?" Victoria smiled, tapping a remote control on the table.
A massive flat-screen television on the far wall flared to life. It was a live video feed of a sterile, concrete basement. Hanging by his wrists from heavy iron chains, shirtless and covered in brutal, dark bruises, was a man. His head was slumped forward, his breathing shallow and ragged.
My heart completely stopped. The gun in my hand trembled.
It was Elias.
"He survived the fall in Monaco," Victoria said smoothly, enjoying the absolute horror washing over my face. "The Architect broke his neck on the rocks, but Elias managed to hit the water. He washed up on the beach three miles away, half-dead. Arthur’s retrieval teams found him before the police did. He’s been your father's guest for the last four weeks."
"No..." I whispered, the cold facade I had built over the last month shattering into a million pieces.
"Arthur knew you would never stop hunting him unless you had a reason to," Victoria stood up, smoothing her skirt. "So, he set a trap. The Lazarus Trap. If you want Elias to live, you will walk out of this building, get into the black town car waiting downstairs, and it will take you to your father. You will sign the final transfer deeds, assume full legal culpability for the Vanguard's remaining crimes, and step into the cage he built for you. If you shoot me, or if you run, Elias dies on a livestream for you to watch."
May you like
I looked at the screen. Elias slowly lifted his head, his face swollen and bloody. He looked directly into the camera lens, his eyes burning with a desperate, silent command. Don't do it.
I lowered my gun. I had burned the world to avenge him, and now, I had to surrender it to save him.
