Chapter 4 - The Empire Shared
The retaliation from Victor Cross came exactly two days later.
I was in my private study when the heavy security doors of the penthouse were breached by a localized EMP. The lights died instantly, plunging the estate into pitch black.
My head of security, Marcus, burst into the room, his weapon drawn. "We have a perimeter breach, Boss. Cross sent a heavily armed hit squad. They bypassed the lobby security."
"Get Claire to the panic room," I ordered, chambering a round into my own matte-black firearm, my blood turning to liquid ice. "No one gets within fifty feet of her."
I stepped out into the dark hallway, ready to wage a violent, bloody war.
But as I moved toward the grand staircase, I saw a shadow slip out of the master suite. It wasn't one of Cross's men. It was Claire.
She wasn't cowering. She wasn't running to the panic room. She was holding a sleek, silver laptop, her face illuminated by the harsh glow of the screen.
"Silas!" she called out, her voice perfectly steady over the sound of distant gunfire in the elevator banks.
"Claire, get back!" I roared, moving to shield her.
"No, listen to me!" she demanded, projecting an authority that stopped me dead in my tracks. "When Maya worked for Cross, she didn't just find the assassination order. She duplicated his entire mainframe security protocol. I spent the last three weeks deciphering it on your servers."
She dropped to her knees, plugging the laptop directly into the hardwired emergency server node in the wall. Her fingers flew across the keyboard with blinding speed.
"What are you doing?" I asked, awe bleeding through my panic.
"Cross sent his men here because he thinks he's untouchable," Claire said, her eyes burning with a fierce, lethal intellect. "But I just bypassed his firewall. I'm overriding the smart-locks on his personal estate, draining his offshore Cayman accounts, and broadcasting his entire blackmail ledger to the FBI, the SEC, and the Russian cartel he stole from."
She hit the Enter key with a resounding, final click.
"Victor Cross doesn't have an empire anymore," she whispered, looking up at me. "He has nothing."
Ten seconds later, the radios of the hit squad trying to breach my floor erupted with frantic, panicked screaming. Their boss was suddenly bankrupt and globally hunted. The assassins immediately aborted the mission, fleeing the building to save themselves.
The war was over, won not with bullets, but with the brilliant mind of the woman I loved.
When the backup generators kicked in, flooding the penthouse with light, I dropped my weapon. I crossed the hallway, pulled Claire up from the floor, and backed her against the marble wall.
"A hardworking baker," I murmured, my chest heaving as my hands framed her face. "You are the most dangerous thing in this entire city, Claire."
"I told you I was going to protect you, Silas," she breathed, reaching up to grip the lapels of my shirt, completely unashamed of the power she had just wielded.
I let out a raw, masculine groan and captured her lips in a kiss that was bruised with adrenaline and absolute, staggering devotion. I kissed her like a man who had just watched his damsel turn into a queen.
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I had spent my entire life sitting on a throne of isolation, believing that love was a weakness that would eventually destroy me. But as I held Claire against the wall, her brilliant mind matching my ruthless ambition, I finally understood the truth.
She wasn't a weakness. She was my empire.
