Chapter 9 - The Collision
The deafening crack of the flash-bang shook the dust from the low wooden rafters, filling the study with blinding white light and a high-pitched ringing that drove a spike straight behind my eyes.
I stumbled backward into the hallway, slamming my shoulder against the timber wall, my vision spinning into a sickening blur of grey and white.
"Grab him!" the first operative shouted over the ringing in my ears. "Julian wants him alive for the Denver conference call, but he doesn't specify how many teeth he has to keep!"
A heavy hand grabbed the collar of my coat, hauling me upright against the paneling. Before I could swing the tire iron, a dry, cracking voice echoed from the study doorway.
"Put him down, Miller."
The name hit me like a bucket of ice water. Not the pilot Miller from Colorado—this was someone else, older, colder.
The hand let go of my collar. I blinked hard, shaking my head violently to clear the static from my brain as the shadows resolved into focus. Standing in the doorway of the study, leaning on a polished oak cane, wasn't a tactical operative.
It was Marcus Vance, Julian’s uncle and the chief legal counsel who had offered me that "safe harbor" in Aspen just days ago.
Marcus adjusted his gold-rimmed spectacles, looking down at me with an expression of mild, clinical disappointment, like a professor examining a student who had failed an elementary exam.
"You really thought you were being clever, Ethan," Marcus said smoothly, walking toward me with measured steps. "Coming all the way to the Jura Mountains on the word of a senile old man in a care home."
"Arthur isn't senile," I spat out, wiping blood from a small cut above my eyebrow where I had hit the wall. "And he's your brother."
"Arthur is a romantic relic of a dead era," Marcus corrected calmly. He glanced over his shoulder at Thomas, who sat unmoved by the fireplace. "Isn't that right, Thomas? You should have stayed in Wales in '83 instead of hiding out in a Swiss cabin waiting for a ghost to come knocking."
Thomas looked up at Marcus, his milky blue eyes flashing with sudden, venomous clarity. "You always were a parasite, Marcus. You couldn't build a shipping line if your life depended on it, so you spent forty years living off the scraps of my brother's bad debts and my father's stolen ledgers."
Marcus’s polite smile didn't reach his eyes. He signaled to the operatives, who immediately moved past me into the hallway, carrying a heavy iron lockbox they had pried out from beneath the floorboards.
"The world has changed, Thomas," Marcus said quietly. "Shipping isn't about family honor and mutual guilds anymore. It’s about global supply chains, algorithmic logistics, and total corporate control. And by noon today, when Clara and Julian ratify the merger in Denver, Vance-Sterling will control ninety-five percent of the northern shipping routes."
"Unless the Liverpool Guild arbitration panel invokes the 1983 addendum," I said, my voice steadying as I pushed myself off the wall.
Marcus stopped and turned back to look at me, a low, humorless chuckle escaping his throat.
"What arbitration panel, Ethan?" he asked softly. "There hasn't been a quorum of the Guild since 1995. Two of the magistrates died of old age years ago. The third—the only one whose signature would make the addendum legally binding—suffered a severe stroke three weeks ago in Zurich."
My stomach dropped into a bottomless pit. "Arthur..."
"Arthur forgot to mention that little detail, didn't he?" Marcus said, his smile turning razor-sharp. "Or perhaps he didn't want to ruin your heroic little road trip. Either way, Ethan, the game is over. The board meeting in Denver is convening in four hours, and Julian is about to vote your remaining personal shares into receivership to pay off Sophia’s legal restitution."
Marcus turned toward the shattered front door, gesturing for his men to follow.
May you like
"Lock them both in the cellar," Marcus ordered over his shoulder. "Let the mountain weather finish what the car crash started in Wales."
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