Chương 20 - The Judas Kiss
The breath froze in Saraphina’s lungs.
Her mother had allegedly died in a car bombing in Palermo twenty-two years ago. Saraphina had visited the empty grave every year until she was forced into hiding.
"How is this possible?" Saraphina choked, rushing toward the frost-covered glass, wiping the rime away with her trembling hands.
Beneath the glass, preserved in deep stasis, lay the pale, serene face of Donna Isabella Moretti. Her vital monitors were faint, pulsing in slow, steady rhythms across the LED readout.
"She's alive..." Saraphina whispered, tears blinding her vision. "Elias... she’s alive!"
Elias approached the second pod, his flashlight beam shaking violently. He wiped the frost from the viewing port of the second unit.
Inside lay his father. Jonathan Kingston.
Not burned in an airfield fire. Not dead. In stasis.
"They didn't kill them," Elias whispered, the horrifying realization washing over him like acid. "Julian didn't kill our parents. He harvested them. He used them as living keys to keep the international accounts locked until he could purge the remaining bloodlines."
*CLAP. CLAP. CLAP.*
The slow, rhythmic sound of applause echoed from the shadows behind the vault's server racks.
Elias spun around, weapon raised instantly. Marco drew his sidearm, stepping in front of Saraphina.
From the darkened service corridor inside the vault—a corridor that bypassed the sealed blast door—a figure stepped into the light.
It wasn't Julian Vance.
It was a woman, dressed in a sharp tactical uniform, carrying an automatic rifle slung over her shoulder. Her features were cold, aristocratic, and bore a terrifying resemblance to Saraphina herself.
"You really took your time opening the door, little sister," the woman said, her voice dripping with amusement.
Saraphina froze. The blood drained entirely from her face.
"Elena...?" Saraphina’s voice was barely a whisper. "You were buried in Milan..."
Elena Moretti—the elder sister presumed dead during the syndicate purge, the golden child of the family—smiled coldly. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small electronic remote.
"Julian was just an employee, Saraphina," Elena purred, her eyes shifting to Elias with predatory malice. "Who do you think hired him to clean the house twenty years ago? Father was weak. Mother was sentimental. And Elias's father wanted to retire and turn our multi-billion-dollar trade into legitimate charities."
"You did this?" Elias snarled, his finger tightening on the trigger. "You murdered your own family?"
"I didn't murder them, darling. I preserved them," Elena laughed softly, tapping the glass of the pod. "Until today. Because now that both of you have provided the biometric bypass to the global accounts, their biometric signatures are no longer required."
Elena's thumb hovered over the red button on the remote.
"Stop!" Saraphina screamed, lunging forward.
Before Elias or Saraphina could fire, a sharp, concussive *BANG* echoed not from Elena—but from right behind them.
Elias gasped, a sudden, blinding shock tearing through his side. He staggered, stumbling against the edge of the stasis pod, his hand clamping over his ribs as hot blood poured through his fingers.
He turned in sheer disbelief.
Marco stood there. The barrel of his smoking Sig Sauer was leveled directly at Elias’s heart.
"Marco...?" Elias choked out, his vision swimming.
"I’m sorry, Boss," Marco said, his voice flat, emotionless, devoid of the loyalty he had displayed for a decade. "Elena pays in sovereign bonds. You pay in loyalty. Loyalty doesn't buy islands."
"Marco, no!" Saraphina screamed, leveling her ceramic blade, but Elena racked the slide of her rifle, aiming it straight between Saraphina's eyes.
"Drop the knife, little sister," Elena commanded, her smile widening into something monstrous. "Or Kingston's boy—who is currently riding in a car with my private extraction team outside Basel—takes a swim in Lake Lucerne with concrete shoes."
Saraphina stopped dead in her tracks, her world shattering into a thousand jagged pieces. Leo was compromised. Elias was bleeding out on the floor. Her sister was the mastermind.
Elena pressed the red button on the remote.
The life support monitors on both cryogenic pods began to shriek with piercing alarms.
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*WARNING: CRYOGENIC FLUID VENTING. SYSTEM TERMINATION IN 60 SECONDS.*
"Now," Elena said, her voice purring through the deafening alarm. "Let's see which one of them you try to save first, Saraphina—your mother, the man you love, or the boy waiting for his bedtime story."
