Chapter 17 - The Manhattan Counter-Strike
In that split second, the air inside the subterranean vault turned razor-sharp.
The two mercenaries kept their red laser sights fixed directly on Daniel’s heart. Eleanor stood with her thumb resting on the detonation trigger, her grey eyes burning with an unhinged, predatory hunger.
"You're bluffing, Eleanor," Daniel said, not an inch of his stance wavering. "You didn't spend ten years in hiding, orchestrating an alliance with Julian Croft and Margaret Vance, just to commit suicide in a concrete tomb. You want the empire. You want the power. You can't spend a single cent if you're crushed beneath fifty thousand tons of granite."
Eleanor’s lips curled into a cruel smirk. "You're right, Daniel. I am ambitious. But you forgot one thing: I don't need this entire mountain. The charges aren't set to collapse the whole estate. They're set to blow the drainage aqueduct behind you. Once that water line breaches, five hundred thousand gallons of the Hudson River will flood this sub-level in ninety seconds. I have an emergency pneumatic lift behind that steel wall. You and your precious sister have a locked concrete tube."
Emily’s breath caught in her throat. Her hand trembled against the platinum pendant at her collar. "Eleanor... why are you doing this? Dad loved you. In his journals, he wrote about you every day before he died!"
"He loved his *control*!" Eleanor hissed, her mask of cold composure slipping for the first time, exposing the raw, festering hatred underneath. "He exiled me because I refused to let him dictate my life! He replaced me with a stray from an orphanage!" She glared at Daniel with venom. "He gave you my birthright! He taught you his business, introduced you to the Senate, and handed you the keys to the kingdom while I was forced to buy forged passports in Tangier!"
"Because you were a thief, Eleanor!" Daniel roared back, his voice echoing thunderously off the titanium walls. "You stole forty million dollars from the employee pension fund when you were twenty-two! Dad didn't exile you because you defied him; he exiled you because you were a monster who preyed on the weak!"
Suddenly, the earpiece in Daniel’s right ear crackled with static.
"Daniel! Can you hear me?" It was Judith’s voice, sharp and urgent, cutting through the high-frequency jamming. "The FTC just launched the raid! Hayes executed emergency freezes on all offshore accounts linked to Julian Croft and Margaret Vance! Julian broke in interrogation—he gave up Eleanor's private shell company, *Vanguard Maritime*!"
Daniel’s mind processed the intel in a millisecond. If *Vanguard Maritime* was frozen, Eleanor's extraction boat waiting on the Hudson River was dead in the water. Her private mercenaries were effectively working for zero dollars.
Daniel shifted his gaze slightly toward the mercenary on the left—the taller one with a scar across his jaw.
"Your name is Koster, isn't it?" Daniel said in fluent German, his tone eerily conversational.
The mercenary’s eyes flickered with surprise. The barrel of his submachine gun wavered by a fraction of an inch.
"Your offshore account with Credit Suisse in Geneva just got flagged by INTERPOL five minutes ago," Daniel continued calmly in German. "The escrow contract Eleanor signed with your syndicate is worthless. Her holding company was seized by the federal government at 19:15. You aren't getting paid fifty million. You are getting life in an American federal penitentiary for armed terrorism."
"Shut up!" Eleanor screamed, noticing her guard's hesitation. "Koster! Shoot him!"
Koster didn't pull the trigger. He took half a step backward, his eyes darting between Eleanor and Daniel. "Is this true?" Koster asked in a gruff, heavily accented voice.
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"She lied to you, Koster," Daniel said, switching back to English so Emily could hear. "She's using you as meat to buy her own escape. Lower your weapons, walk out through the service elevator, and you might survive the night."
"I am the trustee of this estate!" Eleanor shrieked, pressing the red button on the remote.
