Chapter 121
Chapter 121:
Jared struck the steering wheel with the flat of his hand. “Ask your new family.” He glanced at her in the rearview mirror, his eyes wild and restless. “I was head of security for Chapman Retail. Six figures. Pension. A life. Then your husband decides to nuke the stock for some ‘market adjustment.’ The company folded overnight. I lost everything. My house. My wife left me p>
The realization hit Eliza like a physical blow. The Chapman contingency. Dallas had destroyed Claudine’s family business because Claudine had slapped her. He had burned a kingdom for her dignity.
And now the ashes were choking her.
“He didn’t know about you,” Eliza said, her voice trembling. “It wasn’t personal against you p>
“He didn’t care!” Jared screamed, swerving into the oncoming lane before correcting. “That’s worse! To him, I’m just a number on a spreadsheet. Collateral damage. Well — let’s see how he likes his own collateral damage p>
At the same moment, Dallas walked into the private vault beneath Koch Tower. He bypassed the biometric scanners with an override code only he possessed. The heavy steel door hissed open. Weston ran in behind him, breathless.
“Sir, the board meeting is still in session — they need p>
𝘚𝘩𝘢𝗋e уо𝗎𝘳 t𝘩о𝗎𝗴𝗁𝘵ѕ 𝗼𝘯
“Cancel it. And get Zane on the line.” Dallas didn’t look back. He seized two black tactical duffel bags and began sweeping stacks of high-denomination bills from the shelves, then moved to a separate safe and retrieved a hardened-steel briefcase containing the bearer bonds. “Tell Zane to coordinate with my primary security detail. I want eyes on every route out of the city, but they are not to engage. Surveillance only. No police.” He checked his watch, his mind a cold and furious machine. “The data center breach was a ghost — a diversion. Find out who planted it and who it traces back to p>
Weston stopped. He studied the look on Dallas’s face — a look he hadn’t seen since their time in extraction zones overseas. It was the face of a man who had already accepted that he might die, and no longer cared.
“Is it — her?” Weston asked softly.
Dallas didn’t stop loading the bags. The bundles of cash and bonds were heavy and dense. Fifty million dollars. An obscene amount of money. It was nothing. It was paper.
“He took my heart, Weston,” Dallas said, his voice fracturing for a fraction of a second before hardening back into steel. “I’m going to get it back p>
He zipped the bags, hauled them over his shoulder, and walked.
Zane Sterling met him in the underground garage, a tablet in hand displaying a city-wide surveillance grid. “The team is mobilized and staying dark. We have no visual on the vehicle yet p>
“Tracker active on her phone?” Zane asked.
“No,” Dallas said, throwing the bags and briefcase into the trunk of the fastest car in his fleet — a matte black Aston Martin. “He turned it off. We wait for the coordinates p>
His phone pinged.
Dallas went still. He raised the device. A single location pin dropped onto the map.
The Old Shipyard. Pier 4.
He stared at the screen, his eyes burning with a cold, terrifying intensity. He got into the driver’s seat and started the engine. The roar filled the concrete garage like a war cry.