Chapter 14: The Interrogation
Elena cornered Marcus in the parking garage of his luxury condo. It was brutal and efficient. She slammed him against his Mercedes, a cold knife pressed against his carotid artery.
"Vanguard," she hissed, her eyes dead and unfeeling. "Who is issuing the contracts on Julian Thorne's enemies?"
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Marcus sobbed, the polished veneer of a corporate shark dissolving instantly. "It's not a contract!" he gasped. "It's an extraction. They don't want you dead, they want you alive. They need the encryption keys you stole from Julian's vault. If they don't get them, the feds will seize everything!"
Elena froze. The keys. She had destroyed the physical drives, assuming the data was gone forever. But she suddenly remembered a failsafe Julian had bragged about—a dead-man's switch tied to his mother's estate.
