Chapter 10
The silence on the line stretched for three heavy seconds. When Elias spoke again, the amusement was entirely gone from his voice.
"You are brave, Aaliyah. But bravery does not stop bullets," Elias warned coldly. "I am offering you a partnership. Turn the Vanguard political contracts over to my firm by midnight tonight. In exchange, I will make the men Gordon just hired disappear. You keep the rest of the agency, and your beautiful daughter grows up with a mother."
Aaliyah’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. She was trapped in a high-stakes game of corporate chess, and Elias had just brought a gun to the board. The bright, natural colors of the passing city skyline felt like a stark contrast to the dark, violent reality closing in around her.
"If I surrender those contracts," Aaliyah reasoned, her mind operating at lightning speed, "I surrender my leverage. You will slowly bleed my company dry."
"It is the cost of doing business in the big leagues," Elias replied smoothly. "You have until midnight to transfer the files. If I don't receive them, I will let Gordon's men proceed. And Aaliyah... they know exactly where you live."
The line went dead with a sharp click.
Aaliyah stared at the blank dashboard display, her chest heaving with slow, controlled breaths. The adrenaline from the confrontation at the estate surged back into her veins, hotter and far more dangerous than before. She had cut off the head of the snake by firing Meredith, but the venom was already spreading through the water.
She looked in the rearview mirror. Zoe was quietly humming to herself, playing with a small toy she had found in her pocket. The mild red mark on her medium-brown cheek was a physical brand of the war they were currently fighting.
Aaliyah’s eyes darkened into pitch-black voids. The elegant, sophisticated businesswoman vanished completely, entirely consumed by the ruthless, protective matriarch. She was not going to surrender her empire. She was not going to run.
She tapped the screen on her steering wheel, dialing a new, highly encrypted number.
The phone rang twice before a gruff, heavily accented voice answered. "Yeah?"
"Marcus," Aaliyah said, her voice dropping into a register of pure, concentrated ice. "We have a situation. Gordon Monroe has authorized a hit squad against me. Elias Thorne is attempting to extort the Vanguard political contracts."
"Understood," Marcus replied, the sound of a heavy firearm being racked echoing faintly through the speaker. "What are your orders, Ms. Monroe?"
"Mobilize the entire security detail," Aaliyah commanded, her American accent ringing with an absolute, apocalyptic authority. "Secure the perimeter of my penthouse. Lock down the Vanguard servers. And Marcus..."
"Yes, ma'am?"
May you like
Aaliyah’s beautiful, softly sculpted face hardened into a mask of unyielding, terrifying granite under the bright afternoon sun.
"Locate the men Gordon hired," Aaliyah whispered, the final, lethal decree hanging in the air. "And execute them before the sun goes down. We are going to war."
