Chapter 18 - LIGHT AGAINST DARKNESS
The top floor of the fifty-story Apex Tower was a glass-walled penthouse overlooking the hazy Chicago skyline.
Inside, Victor—a heavily scarred mercenary—stood near the floor-to-ceiling windows, holding a silenced pistol against the head of the terrified city zoning director. Three armed men guarded the heavy steel doors.
Suddenly, the reinforced doors blew inward with a deafening explosion of flashbangs and smoke.
BOOM!
Before the mercenaries could react, Dominic Vale stepped through the smoke like a shadow of judgment. He moved with terrifying speed and lethal efficiency, disarming the first guard with a brutal wrist lock and throwing him across the glass table.
Julian and SWAT officers flooded the room behind him, securing the other two mercenaries instantly.
Victor panicked, pulling his hostage closer to the glass edge. "Back off, Vale! Or I throw him off the roof!"
Dominic stopped ten feet away, his arms at his sides, his gray eyes cold and unblinking.
"Look around you, Victor," Dominic said, his deep voice calm and devoid of fear. "Sebastian Vance is currently sitting in a federal holding cell at O'Hare Airport. His accounts are frozen. Apex is gone. You are fighting for a dead man's money."
Victor's hands trembled on his gun. "He paid me five million—"
"He paid you in bounced checks," Dominic interrupted coldly. "Let the man go. Step away from the glass, and you walk out of here alive to face a judge. Take another step, and I won't need a gun to finish this."
Victor looked into Dominic's eyes—eyes that had commanded the darkest underworld in the Midwest for a decade. The sheer weight of Dominic's aura broke the mercenary's resolve. Victor slowly lowered his gun and pushed the hostage toward the SWAT team, dropping to his knees with his hands behind his head.
Captain Miller stepped forward, slapping handcuffs on Victor's wrists. "Clear! Hostage is safe!"
Miller turned to Dominic, shaking his head with immense respect. "You didn't fire a single shot, Vale."
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Dominic looked out the window at the city below, the sun breaking through the dark storm clouds, painting the sky in brilliant gold.
"I don't need to fire shots anymore, Captain," Dominic said softly. "The shadows are gone."
