Se connecterGiordano manages to play the corporate prince for twenty minutes, but Victoria isn't buying the charm even if she thinks he has a pretty face. 😉 Tex is officially joining the trip because there is no way he's letting Victoria head into the Russian tundra alone with Salvatore. The bags are packed, the weapons are loaded, and the crew is heading straight for the ice. Drop your comments below. Chapter 17 is about to get freezing! ❄️✈️
Bruce scrambled over, quickly handing Giordano the wireless earpiece. Giordano took his place in front of the lens, his posture instantly shifting from a battered survivor to a perfectly composed, flawless tech mogul as the digital countdown on the screen hit zero.The rotating blue crest of the Nordic Defense Council vanished, replaced by a split-screen matrix of four high-ranking ministers sitting in windowless briefing rooms across Europe."Salvatore," Minister Vance grunted, his image broadcasting from a secure bunker in Oslo. "You’re late. The cryptographic handshake was scheduled for twelve minutes ago. We were about to flag your terminal as compromised.""An infrastructure glitch at the Zurich data center," Giordano said, his voice smooth, authoritative, and completely devoid of the strain ripping through his ribs. He didn't blink, his face a flawless mask of corporate arrogance. "The localized fire wall took a minor hit during a routine server migration. It's handled. The encr
The word Siberia hung in the cold morning air, heavy and ridiculous. Giordano didn't move for a second, his hands still gripping the edge of the stretcher inside the van. "Siberia? That’s a frozen graveyard. Nobody routes high-end weapons tech through a dead Soviet server unless they already have a buyer on the ground." "Which means my EMP is already moving," Victoria said, her voice dropping into a dangerous, flat register. "And I don't intend to let it leave the continent." A sudden gust of wind swept through the gravel yard, whipping the raw, smoky smell of her ruined club right back into her face. The morning sun was climbing higher, cutting through the gray smog with a harsh, blinding glare that made her eyes burn. Before Giordano could retort, the heavy satellite phone in Victoria’s jacket pocket began to buzz violently. It wasn't her usual burner; it was the secure, hard-encrypted line reserved for the inner circle of her syndicate operations. Beside her, Kany instantly wen
Giordano rolled his eyes, leaning his head back against the hard pillow as the painkiller started to dull the sharp stab in his side. "Yeah. I can tell. You're real sweet, kid." Tex didn't appreciate the attitude. He deliberately tightened his grip on Giordano's injury, pressing down on the torn flesh just hard enough to make the billionaire flinch and gasp for air. Tex leaned in close, his orange hair practically touching Giordano's face. "I'm serious. If I find out that you brought any tracking devices, any syndicates, or any of your corporate enemies down on Victoria, I will personally kill you on this table and make it look like a medical complication. Do you understand me?" Despite the burning pain in his side, Giordano smirked provocatively, a dark, arrogant spark flashing in his eyes. He opened his mouth, completely ready to deliver a snappy retort that would probably get him stabbed with a scalpel, but Bruce sharply cut in before he could start a war. "Boss, please,"
With a sharp wave, Vance turned around and told her men to clear the perimeter, look for survivors, and get their statements. Just as she took another step, she looked over her shoulder and told Victoria that she had to go to the station to drop her statement. Without waiting for Victoria to reply, Vance left. Victoria scowled as she watched the captain's back. She turned to face a bald bouncer standing near the rubble and jerked her chin toward the street. "Go with Vance. Drop the statement. Keep it simple, keep it legal, and don't tell them a damn thing." The man nodded, his face blank. "Yes, boss." With that, he turned and walked toward the police line. Victoria wiped a thick layer of gray dust off her outfit, her chest tightening as she looked back at the smoking ruins of Aces and Ales. Her fingers curled into tight fists. She gritted her teeth, the fury boiling right behind her eyes. When she found out who was responsible for this mess, when she found the person who da
The world came back in raw pieces. Dirt, rocks, and the chemical sting of burning plastic. Victoria coughed hard, a violent hack that brought up black soot from her throat. She rolled onto her side on the wet asphalt, her palms scraping raw against the glass-littered ground. Her head was pounding with a loud, ringing noise that made it hard to think. "Fuck," Giordano muttered nearby. He was on his knees, clutching his left side. His chest was covered in black grime, and blood was leaking through his fingers from a deep cut across his ribs. A piece of flying metal had caught him during the scramble up the stairs. "Fuck. That was no gas leak." "Shut up," Victoria choked out, pushing herself into a sit. Her dark robe was torn to shreds at the bottom, soaked in dirty water and ash. She looked toward the front of the alley. Aces and Ales was gone. The entire building was just a hollow shell throwing thick orange flames and heavy black smoke into the gray morning air. The blast had shat
Giordano let out a groan as his eyes fluttered open. His surroundings didn’t look like the expensive lounge of the Aces and Ales bar, nor did they resemble the glaring red of the high-security EMP vault. Instead, the room was stripped bare, cast in a suffocating, low-voltage darkness that smelled heavily of rust, damp concrete, and stagnant water. It was a glorified dungeon, and he was the center attraction. "Finally," Victoria’s taunting voice rang out from the shadows, dripping with a cold, dangerous amusement. "I was starting to think you were going to remain unconscious forever, Salvatore. And I really hate wasting a good interrogation on a sleeping man. It completely ruins the vibe." Giordano twitched his left eye, a sharp, blinding throb radiating straight from the back of his skull down to his jaw. He tried to shift his weight, but the unforgiving bite of leather bindings anchored his wrists securely behind a rusted industrial chair. His shirt was missing, the freezi
The club's bass line muffled into a heavy, rhythmic throb the second they stepped away from the main lounge partition. The air back here was cooler, smelling faintly of clean linen, expensive liquor, and the distinct undercurrent of danger that always followed Giordano Salvatore around like a shado
The music on the main floor of Aces and Ales shifted, dropping from a chaotic electric pulse into a low, heavy blues rhythm that crawled across the room like smoke. It was a calculated mood change. The kind of song designed to make drunk high-society idiots close their eyes, lose their inhibitions,
The bass in Aces and Ales didn’t just play; it vibrated through the floorboards, thumping against the soles of Victoria De Luca’s Louboutins like a secondary heartbeat.The club was her kingdom. Underground, exclusive, and buried deep beneath the concrete of Lower Manhattan. Upstairs, the city’s pol
“...we’ve got news on your father’s death.”The cold night air outside Helms Cove hit Victoria like a slap. She didn't gasp or scream. She just stood there by the open door of her car, her silver-gray eyes fixing on Kany."Get in," Victoria said, her voice dropping to a flat, hard whisper.The mome







