Chapter 33 - Cold Arithmetic | I walked for two miles through the freezing woods, keeping off the main roads, until I reached a small, sleepy gas station on the edge of the highway.
The tired attendant behind the counter looked up in shock as I walked in—drenched in red wine, covered in soot, but walking with the posture of a queen.
"Ma'am? Do you need me to call the police?" he asked, reaching for the landline.
"No," I replied, my voice steady and cold. "I need to use your phone to make a long-distance call."
I dialed a private number from memory—a number I had sworn I would never use.
"Speak," a deep, raspy voice answered on the third ring.
"It's Claire," I said. "The Vance situation just turned lethal."
A heavy silence lingered on the line for a moment. "I heard rumor Aegis Protocol was mobilized. Did Richard do it?"
"No. It was bigger than Richard," I answered, leaning against the counter. "The board was infiltrated. Mara was working for a third party."
"Who?"
"I don't know yet," I admitted. "But I need your resources now, Julian. The clean kind and the dirty kind."
Julian Vance—Richard’s estranged, black-sheep brother who had been exiled from the family twenty years ago—chuckled softly through the receiver.
May you like
"I told you months ago, little girl. You can't fight a monster by staying human," Julian said smoothly. "If I help you take back control, my price is fifty percent of Vance Global’s energy division."
"Done," I said without missing a beat. "Just send a car to route 9. And bring weapons."
Related Stories
