Chapter 7 - The Extraction
The room erupted into violent chaos.
Richard Vance turned sharply, his face twisting in sudden terror as he reached for a shotgun resting on the wooden desk beside him. His lead bodyguard raised a submachine gun, but Marcus’s lead operator fired two rapid double-taps into the bodyguard's chest before the man could clear his holster.
The bodyguard collapsed backward onto a glass coffee table, shattering it into a thousand pieces.
Richard grabbed the shotgun, racked the slide, and aimed it toward the door—but I didn't wait for Marcus's operators.
I stepped into the room, lunged forward, and slammed the heavy barrel of my polymer handgun directly into Richard Vance’s face.
The steel struck his cheekbone with a brutal CRACK.
Richard let out a bloody scream, dropping the shotgun as he stumbled backward into the wall, blood pouring from his shattered nose. I grabbed him by the throat, pinning his heavy frame against the concrete wall, pressing the muzzle of my gun firmly beneath his chin.
"Move an inch," I growled into his ear, my voice trembling with lethal intent, "and I’ll paint this wall with what little brain you have left."
Richard choked, his eyes wide with blinding terror as he recognized my face through the blood streaming down his nose. "M-Miller... you're crazy... this is kidnapping..."
"Search him," I told Marcus without taking my eyes off Richard.
Marcus stepped forward, pulled a heavy tactical knife from his vest, and sliced through the thick rope binding the woman sitting in the wooden chair in the center of the room.
I turned my head slightly.
Emma sat in the chair. Her dark hair was matted with sweat, her left eye swollen shut, her lip cut and bruised. She wore a stained canvas coat over a torn sweater.
She looked pale, exhausted, and broken—yet as she lifted her head and opened her clear blue eye to look at me, I saw the exact same fiercely independent woman who had stolen my heart six years ago.
"Jason?" she whispered, her voice barely a thread of sound.
I dropped Richard Vance to the floor, letting Marcus pin the bloodied man with a knee to his spine.
I dropped to my knees in front of Emma, throwing my gun aside, wrapping my hands gently around her bruised, trembling wrists.
"I'm here, Emma," I choked out, my eyes filling with hot, bitter tears for the first time in twenty years. "I'm here. You're safe."
Emma stared at my face, her fingers reaching up weakly to touch my wet, rain-soaked cheek. "The boys... Liam and Lucas... did they—"
"They're safe," I interrupted, kissing her cold, dirty knuckles. "They're at my penthouse. They ate pancakes, they played with toys, and they're sleeping in warm beds. Liam gave me your notebook."
A long, shuddering sob tore through Emma’s chest. She leaned forward, burying her face into the crook of my neck, weeping uncontrollably as the terror of the past forty-eight hours finally poured out of her.
I pulled her tightly against my chest, wrapping my coat around her shivering body, holding her like she was the only precious thing left in the entire world.
"I'm sorry," I whispered into her hair, my voice cracking with absolute regret. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there for five years, Emma. I'm so sorry I let you suffer alone."
"You came," Emma sobbed quietly against my neck. "I knew... if I sent them to you... you wouldn't let them die."
Behind us, Richard Vance let out a raspy, blood-choked laugh from the floor.
"You think you've won, Miller?!" Richard spat out, glaring at us through his swollen eyes. "Arthur already signed the Blackwood agreement! The wire transfers went through an hour ago! Blackwood owns thirty percent of Vance Logistics now! They have federal judges in their pocket! You can't touch us!"
I slowly stood up, turning to look down at Richard Vance lying in his own blood.
I pulled out my secure phone, hit speed dial, and placed it on speakerphone.
"Claire," I said calmly into the mic. "Execute Directive Alpha."
From the speaker, Claire’s crisp, professional voice answered immediately: "Directive Alpha executed, Mr. Miller. At 1:15 AM, Miller Meridian Capital finalized the hostile open-market acquisition of fifty-one percent of controlling shares in Blackwood Holdings LLC."
Richard Vance’s jaw dropped open, his eyes bulging in absolute disbelief. "What... what did you say?"
"I bought Blackwood Holdings thirty minutes ago, Richard," I said, looking down at him with pure, glacial detachment. "Which means I now own the company you just sold your stolen shares to. I am your majority owner, your primary creditor, and your worst nightmare."
I looked at Marcus. "Bind his hands. Throw him in the back of the van and deliver him directly to the Special Investigations Bureau at the Manhattan US Attorney's office, along with Emma's ledger."
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"With pleasure, boss," Marcus grinned darkly, pulling out heavy zip-ties.
I turned back to Emma, gently lifting her into my arms. She was light—far too light—her head resting exhausted against my chest as I carried her out of the ruined warehouse, down the rusted catwalk, and out into the clean, refreshing night rain.
