Chapter 8 - CHAPTER 7: THE SYNDICATE'S LAST STAND
With Ryan and Vanessa locked away in maximum security, the legal war was effectively won. But the shadow of Vanessa’s syndicate still hung over us.
Two weeks after the bail hearing, while resting at my brothers' lakeside estate, Gabriel received an encrypted satellite alert on his phone.
He walked into the estate's glass-walled study, where Matthew, Lucas, Ethan, and I were having lunch.
"The head of the Lopez syndicate—Vanessa’s father, Hector Lopez—just landed at Midway Airport," Gabriel announced quietly.
Matthew set his fork down, his eyes narrowing. "Why is he in Chicago?"
"He knows Vanessa is going to face twenty years in federal prison unless she cuts a deal," Gabriel explained, stepping up to a digital map on the wall. "Hector isn't here to rescue her. He’s here to destroy the digital hard drives containing his syndicate’s offshore banking logs—hard drives that Vanessa hid inside Ryan’s commercial office before her arrest."
"Ryan's office?" I asked, sitting up. "That office is under police seal!"
"Hector doesn't care about police seals," Gabriel said. "He brought a team of six heavily armed mercenaries. They plan to break into the downtown office building tonight at midnight, burn the floor to the ground, and escape via helicopter from the roof."
Ethan stood up, his fingers already typing rapid commands on his phone. "I can remotely lock down the building’s elevator shafts and activate the fire suppression system."
"No," Gabriel said, looking at my three brothers. "If you lock them inside, they will take hostages from the janitorial crew working the midnight shift. We need to lure them into a controlled trap."
I looked at Gabriel, seeing the tactical genius that had kept him alive for five years in the jungle.
"What do you need us to do?" Lucas asked, his voice filled with determination.
"I need your private security team to secure the perimeter," Gabriel said. "And I need Ethan to bypass the building's digital power grid so we can isolate Hector on the fifteenth floor."
Gabriel then turned to me, his tone softening. "And you, Sophia, are staying right here with Matthew's elite guards."
I looked down at my seven-month pregnant belly, feeling a strong, reassuring kick from my baby girl.
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"Be careful, Gabriel," I whispered, reaching out to touch his arm. "Don't let them take you away from us again."
Gabriel placed his large, warm hand over mine, his grey eyes holding a promise that didn't need words. "I'm not going anywhere, Sophia. My war ends tonight."
