Chapter 15 - The Blood Vault
The motor launch tore across the black expanse of Lake Geneva, leaving a foaming white wake behind them.
Arthur lay on the deck, shivering violently as Maya threw an emergency thermal blanket around his shoulders.
"Hypothermia will set in within twenty minutes if we don't get you dry," Maya said, her eyes scanning the dark horizon.
"I don't care about the cold," Arthur said through chattering teeth. "Victoria said they need my blood."
"For what?" Maya asked, checking the boat's navigation screen.
"My father had a private biometric repository," Arthur explained, pushing himself up onto his elbows. "Beneath the estate in Zurich."
"The Alpine fortress?" Maya frowned. "I thought your grandmother transferred full legal ownership to you."
"Legal ownership means nothing to a biometric lock coded to ancestral DNA," Arthur replied, his voice hardening.
"The Iron Synod isn't after Hawthorne International's public shares," Maya realized, her expression darkening with alarm.
"They want the Eighth Ledger," Arthur said, staring out at the mist-covered Swiss shoreline. "The master record of every puppet politician, judge, and dictator they own."
"If Victoria gets her hands on that ledger, she won't just control your father's empire," Maya warned. "She'll control half the continent."
Arthur pulled the wet thermal blanket tighter around himself, his eyes gleaming like polished flint in the boat’s dashboard glow.
"Then we beat her to it," Arthur said with absolute conviction. "We take the ledger, and we burn the Synod to ash."
Two hours later, a chartered helicopter deposited them in the dense pine forests bordering the Hawthorne estate.
The sprawling stone chateau looked like a sleeping giant against the jagged alpine peaks, shrouded in heavy snowfall.
No lights shone from the high gothic windows, but fresh tire tracks cut deep ruts through the pristine white driveway.
"They're already inside," Maya whispered, lowering her night-vision goggles. "Three vehicles, black SUVs."
"They don't have the entry codes for the subterranean vault," Arthur murmured, checking the chamber of a captured sidearm.
"How do we get down there without tripping the perimeter alarms?" Maya asked, pulling her tactical balaclava over her face.
"My father built an escape tunnel during the Cold War," Arthur replied, gesturing toward an overgrown stone crypt at the edge of the woods.
They slipped inside the mausoleum, navigating past rows of dead Hawthornes until they reached a granite sarcophagus.
Arthur pressed a concealed sequence of carved roses along the rim, and the stone slab slid aside with a grinding hiss.
A spiral staircase descended into pitch-black depths, the air smelling of ozone, stale air, and ancient secrets.
They moved silently down the steps, their boots making no sound on the ancient iron grating.
At the bottom of the shaft, a reinforced titanium door stood slightly ajar, bathed in an ominous red emergency light.
Inside the high-tech chamber, three bodies lay motionless across the polished stainless-steel floor.
May you like
Arthur stepped over the fallen guards, his gaze locking onto the massive vault door at the back of the room.
The biometric scanner was dripping with fresh, dark blood, and the heavy vault gears were slowly turning open.
