The Commission guards are slowly backing away, their weapons still raised, but their morale completely shattered by the sheer, unadulterated brutality of the execution. Their leverage is dead. The war is effectively over.
I look at Sybil.
She is standing exactly where I left her, shielded by Dante. She is staring at the lifeless body of her father lying in the mud. There are no tears. There is no horror. There is only a dark, hollow acceptance of the violent world she has completely embraced.
I walk back to her, my boots squelching in the bloody gravel. My left arm is completely numb, the adrenaline finally crashing, leaving me swaying slightly on my feet.
"It's over," I murmur, reaching out to cup her wet cheek with my blood-stained right hand.
Sybil closes her eyes, leaning heavily into my palm, a long, shuddering exhale escaping her lips.
Then, the shrill, electronic chirp of a device completely shatters the silence.
I freeze. Dante curses violently.
I look down at the mud. The heavy, encrypted satellite phone that Arthur dropped is glowing brightly against the wet gravel.
A red, digital progress bar is moving rapidly across the screen.
100% Complete. Files Transmitted.
"Boss," Dante says, his voice entirely devoid of color, completely hollowed out by absolute dread. He points his tactical flashlight at the phone. "It wasn't a manual switch. It was a timer.If he didn't enter the abort code by midnight... the system automatically uploaded."
My blood turns to absolute ice.
I look up, my pale eyes scanning the dark, oppressive horizon of the city.
The distant, rising wail of dozens of police sirens begins to cut through the roar of the storm. It is not the localized, disorganized sound of beat cops responding to a shooting. It is the heavy, coordinated, overwhelming siren wail of a massive federal raid.
Arthur Vance didn't just die. He pulled the pin on a grenade and dropped it directly onto the Thorne Syndicate.
"They have the files," Dante breathes, the realization completely crushing him. "The FBI. The Feds. Thayer... they are coming for us."
I look down at Sybil. Her blue eyes are wide, completely terrified once again, staring up at me as the sound of the sirens grows deafeningly close. We are no longer just fighting a mafia war. We are hunted by the United States government. The empire I built to protect her is completely compromised.
I wrap my right arm entirely around her waist, hauling her flush against my chest.
"Dante," I command, my voice a dark, lethal roar that echoes over the sirens. "Burn the vehicles. We are going off the grid."
CHAPTER 17 THE GETAWAY POV: SYBIL
The wail of the federal sirens is not a sound. It is a physical vibration that burrows deep into the earth, vibrating up through the soles of my boots and rattling the marrow inside my bones.
It is the sound of the entire world crashing down around us.
"Burn them!" Dante roars, his voice entirely shredding over the chaotic, deafening symphony of the storm and the approaching police cruisers.
I stand frozen in the freezing mud of the railyard, my chest heaving with violent, jagged gasps of air. The lifeless body of Arthur Vance—my father—lies crumpled in the gravel less than ten feet away. The rain is already washing the mud and the blood from his pale, lifeless face, but I feel absolutely nothing. No grief. No horror. The only thing that registers in my shattered, completely rewired brain is the terrifying, crushing weight of Thayer’s right arm wrapped securely around my waist.
Syndicate soldiers scramble through the rusted labyrinth of the derailed train cars. Heavy plastic jerrycans are hauled from the trunks of the armored SUVs. The sharp, toxic scent of gasoline rapidly overpowers the smell of rain and wet iron. They douse the million-dollar vehicles, completely soaking the leather interiors and the bulletproof chassis.
"Boss, we have less than three minutes before they breach the outer access road!" Dante shouts, throwing an empty jerrycan into the mud. He pulls a flare from his tactical vest, his thumb hovering over the ignition cap. "The ghost car is parked behind the collapsed silo on the east ridge. Go!"
Thayer doesn't hesitate. He doesn't look back at the empire he is abandoning or the corpse of the man who triggered its downfall. He tightens his iron grip on my waist, hauling me entirely against his side.
"Move, Sybil," he growls, his voice a low, demonic vibration that completely cuts through the blinding panic clouding my vision.
We run.
