The drive from the pharmaceutical warehouse to the Vane mansion felt like a descent into a war zone. Xavier gripped the steering wheel of the armored SUV so hard his knuckles turned white, the leather creaking under the pressure. Beside him, Zane was calmly checking his thermal optics, but the tension in the vehicle was high enough to shatter glass.
"Efe, give me a status on the mansion's internal grid," Xavier barked into his comms.
"It's a mess, Lion," Efe's voice came through, distorted by the Syndicate's jammers. "They didn't just break in; they used a high-frequency pulse to fry the automated turrets and the biometric locks. Seraphina is locked in the panic room beneath the library, but they're using thermal torches on the door. You have maybe ten minutes before they breach."
Xavier pushed the accelerator to the floor, the engine roaring like a wounded beast. He could see the smoke rising over the treeline—the gatehouse was gone.
"Chidi, you take the rear entrance through the kitchen," Xavier commanded as they skidded into the driveway. "Zane, get to the roof of the guest house. I want a clear line of sight on anyone moving near the library windows. I'm going through the front door."
"That's suicide, Xavier!" Chidi shouted. "There are at least a dozen of them in the foyer!"
"Then they'll have a front-row seat to their own funeral," Xavier replied, his voice cold and flat.
Xavier didn't wait for the car to fully stop. He rolled out of the moving vehicle, drawing two suppressed handguns in a single, fluid motion. He kicked the massive oak front doors open, the wood splintering under the force of his Ogochukwu-trained strength.
The foyer was a nightmare of shattered porcelain and bullet-ridden paintings. Three Syndicate mercenaries turned, their rifles raised, but Xavier was already a blur of motion. He dived behind a fallen marble statue of a Greek god, returning fire with surgical precision.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The mercenaries fell before they could even scream. Xavier didn't stop to check their pulses. He sprinted up the grand staircase, his mind focused on one thing: the ledger and the woman who held it.
He reached the library just as the heavy steel door of the panic room began to glow orange from the heat of a plasma torch. A man in a high-tech tactical suit stood over the torch, his back to Xavier.
"Step away from the door," Xavier said, his voice echoing in the quiet room.
The man turned slowly. It wasn't a mercenary. It was Silas Vane's personal lawyer, a man who had been a family friend for twenty years. In his hand, he held the leather-bound ledger.
"You should have stayed in Lagos, Xavier," the lawyer said, a twisted smile on his face. "This empire was built on secrets. You were never meant to be part of the equation."
"The equation changed the moment you touched my wife," Xavier said.
Before the lawyer could react, the panic room door hissed open. Seraphina stepped out, not with a look of fear, but with a small, silver-plated derringer pointed directly at the lawyer's heart.
"I believe you're holding something that belongs to my husband," she said, her voice like ice.
The lawyer laughed, a frantic, desperate sound. "You won't shoot. You're a Vane. You care about the optics, the PR—"
BANG.
The bullet grazed the lawyer's ear, sending him stumbling back in shock. Seraphina didn't blink. "I'm not a Vane anymore. I'm an Ogochukwu. And we don't care about optics."
Xavier moved in, disarming the man and snatching the ledger back. He pulled Seraphina into his arms, checking her for injuries.
"I have the proof," he whispered into her hair. "And I have you. The Syndicate just lost their last card."