Chapter 4 - The Sovereign Audit
By 2:00 PM, the G-Wagon had bypassed the city limits, pulling into the private hangar of a corporate airstrip near Hillsboro. A sleek, black Gulfstream jet sat on the tarmac, its engines already whining to life.
Daniel sat at a laptop inside the hangar's private lounge, his tailored jacket removed, his shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal the heavy, dark tattoos of the Mercer syndicate wrapping around his forearms.
"Where are we going?" I asked, holding a sleeping Noah in my arms.
"New York," Daniel said, his fingers flying across the keyboard. "Matteo thinks he’s hunting a rogue asset. He doesn't realize that while I was tracking you, I spent the last six months buying out the secondary debt of his dummy corporations."
I stared at him. "You liquidated his logistics network?"
"I liquidated everything, Emily," Daniel said, looking up with a cold, victorious smile that sent a shiver down my spine. "Matteo’s power relies entirely on the port authorities in Jersey and the union blocks. At noon today, my legal task force executed an emergency buyout of the holding company that owns his shipping docks."
The door of the lounge opened, and Viktor stepped in, holding a tablet. "Boss, we have Matteo’s location. He’s at the estate in Long Island. He just received the notification that his bank accounts have been frozen by the feds for compliance tracking."
"Is the security team ready?" Daniel asked, standing up and reaching for a clean, black tactical coat.
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"Thirty men are already positioned at the gates, sir," Viktor replied. "They're just waiting for your signal."
Daniel walked over to where I sat, kneeling in front of the sofa just like he used to in the penthouse years ago. He gently touched Noah’s dark hair, his expression turning to ice as he looked up at me. "You ran to protect him, Em. Now stay here and watch how I make the world safe for him."
