The phone rang twice.
“Vanguard Capital,” a voice answered on the other end. It was crisp, impatient, and terrifyingly calm.
“They took the pills, Ethan,” I whispered into the receiver, my voice barely a raspy thread against the speaker. “He just told me to go mow the lawn.”
An absolute, heavy three-second silence fell over the line. When my brother, Ethan, finally broke the quiet, his voice lacked any comforting brotherly warmth, any frantic shock, or any useless pity. It was the clinical, lethal voice of a corporate shark who dismantled multi-billion-dollar conglomerates for sport—the voice of a man who viewed the entire world as a digital chessboard where mercy was a fatal flaw.
“Hold,” Ethan said.
In the background, I heard the rapid, aggressive clacking of a mechanical keyboard, followed by his sharp command to his executive assistant: “Get the private jet ready on the tarmac. Mobilize the medical extraction team. Wake up the head of our legal department. Now.”
Ethan came back on the line, his tone chillingly precise.
“Pack absolutely nothing, Audrey,” he instructed. “An elite, private medevac team will be at your backdoor at exactly 2:00 AM. They already have the security overrides to the neighborhood gate. Do exactly what you have to do to survive the next forty-eight hours. By the time the sun rises on Wednesday, Garrick will no longer have a wife. By the time it sets, he will no longer have a life.”
“Okay,” I breathed, letting the burner phone slip from my fingers as the screen went dark.
Part 3: The Midnight Extraction
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