Chapter 198: The Betrayer Revealed

The garage was a tomb for forgotten vehicles, smelling of cold concrete, stale oil, and damp. The “untraceable” car was a ten-year-old Renault van, its dull grey paint peeling, a far cry from the silent, armored luxury Anton was accustomed to. Sabatine worked with swift, efficient movements, hot-wiring the ignition with a focus that shut out the world, and the fresh, bloody graze on his side.

Anton watched him, the kiss still burning on his lips—a brand of sanity in the chaos. It had changed the axis of his world. The fear was still there, a cold knot in his stomach, but it was now secondary to a ferocious, clarifying need: to protect the man in front of him, and to burn the conspiracy that had brought them here to the ground.

The van sputtered to life. Sabatine slid into the driver’s seat, his jaw tight. “We have a two-hour window, maybe less, before they lock the canton down with a story about a deranged PI kidnapping a billionaire. We need a secure location. Somewhere they’d never think to look.”

Anton didn’t hesitate. He gave an address in Carouge, the old Italianate district. “A safe house. My father’s paranoia had its uses. It’s off the books. Purchased through a shell corporation even our CFO couldn’t penetrate.” He didn’t say Evelyn. The name was poison now.

Sabatine nodded, pulling the van out of the gloomy garage and into the pale, pre-dawn light of Geneva’s old town. The streets were empty, slick with recent rain, reflecting the amber glow of streetlights like shattered honey.

For twenty minutes, they drove in a silence that was no longer charged with mistrust, but with a dense, shared purpose. Anton used the time, his mind—the calculating, analytical engine that had built an empire—shifting gears. He replayed every interaction, every board meeting, every financial disclosure for the last five years. The theft of the Aegis prototype wasn’t an isolated act. It was a finale. It required deep, systemic access, patience, and a motive that went beyond mere money. Evelyn and Marcus wanted a weapon, but someone had handed them the keys to the armory.

“It’s not just them,” Anton said, his voice cutting through the rumble of the engine. “The access logs for the Aegis lab, the bypass of the physical security—Evelyn had clearance, but her patterns were monitored. Someone provided a mirror key, a digital ghost. And the financial trails you found… they were too clean, you said. Professionally laundered. Not corporate greed. Espionage-grade.”

Sabatine’s hands tightened on the wheel. “A state actor?”

“No. More insidious. A consortium.” Anton stared out at the waking city, his reflection a ghostly, determined outline on the glass. “The Zurich-London Axis. A private club of old money and new tech barons who believe borders and laws are for smaller men. My father fought them for years. He called them the ‘Gentlemen Vultures.’” He let out a bitter, short laugh. “He said one day, they’d recruit from within. That the most dangerous betrayal wears a familiar face.”

The safe house was a modest, three-story townhouse on a quiet, cobbled street, indistinguishable from its neighbors. Inside, it was a time capsule of sterile, functional paranoia: beige walls, secure landline, cabinets of non-perishable food, and a bank of outdated but hardened communication equipment in a basement shielded against digital surveillance.

Sabatine immediately set to work, plugging a slim satellite modem into the system. “I need to access my honey pots. The data I pulled before they framed me… it’s fragmented, but it’s there.”

Anton, meanwhile, stood in the barren living room, a prince in a pauper’s cell. The adrenaline was fading, leaving a hollow, shaking exhaustion. And beneath it, a rising, volcanic rage. He’d been played. Not just by his brother, but by someone who had eaten at his table, toasted his successes, and sworn loyalty to his legacy.

He closed his eyes, and the faces of his inner circle scrolled past like a rogue’s gallery.

Then, it stopped. On one face.

“Michael Thorne,” Anton whispered.

Sabatine looked up from the flickering monitor. “Your Head of International Ops.”

It wasn’t a question. Anton’s tone had held the finality of a judge’s gavel.

Michael Thorne. Fifty-eight. A relic from his father’s era, with a handshake like granite and eyes that never quite held a smile. He’d overseen the expansion into Asia and the Middle East. He was a fixture, a piece of the furniture. Dependable. Invisible.

“He had a phrase,” Anton said, pacing the narrow room. “‘The consortium sees the horizon, not the fences.’ I thought it was just his old-world, clubland bravado. He was the one who pushed for the Aegis project to have a dual-use clause—potential for government contracts. He handled the non-disclosure agreements with the Swiss testing facility.” He stopped, the pieces locking into place with an almost audible click. “The night of the theft, security showed him entering the Zurich tech hub at 11 PM for a ‘systems audit.’ His biometrics. No one else’s.”

“He’s the ghost,” Sabatine said, his fingers flying over the keyboard. “He provided the cover, the access, and the exit strategy. Evelyn and Marcus were the front—the ambition and the personal vengeance. Thorne is the professional. The true believer.” He swiveled the monitor. “Look. The encrypted files I recovered… the final routing path for the stolen data. It doesn’t terminate with Evelyn’s shell companies. It goes through a blind trust in Liechtenstein. The ‘Alpine Fidelity Trust.’ My military intelligence database just flagged it. It’s a known clearinghouse for the Axis.”

On screen were transaction logs, encrypted memos, and finally, a scanned image of a handwritten note, elegant and precise: “The Rogers boy is predictable. His father’s sentimentality for legacy is his blindness. The Aegis will be our master key. Proceed. The consortium is pleased.” The signature was a single, looping initial: T.

The room felt suddenly airless. This wasn’t a crime of passion or simple greed. It was a cold, surgical extraction performed by a man Anton had called “Uncle Mike” at his father’s funeral. The resentment wasn’t hot; it was glacial, built over decades of perceived slights. Thorne had been his father’s number two, yet when the old man died, the crown went to the “boy,” the tech-savvy heir with new ideas that made Thorne’s old-world networks seem obsolete.

“He resented me,” Anton said, his voice flat. “But this… this is allegiance. He sold my father’s life’s work to a cabal he thinks represents the ‘proper’ order.”

Sabatine stood, approaching him. He didn’t offer empty comfort. He offered a soldier’s solidarity. “Then we use his allegiance against him. The consortium values discretion above all. If we expose Thorne, we expose their operation. They’ll cut him loose to save themselves.”

“We need proof that ties him directly to Evelyn and Marcus. Something that can’t be buried by lawyers or ‘national security’ interventions.”

A grim smile touched Sabatine’s lips. He moved to a duffel bag he’d retrieved from the van and pulled out a small, black device—a digital recorder. “When I confronted Evelyn in your office, before the shooting started… I was wired. The agency habits die hard. I triggered it when I entered.” He pressed play.

The audio was crisp, terrifyingly intimate.

Evelyn’s voice, cool and mocking: “...claiming what’s ours.”

A new voice, older, calmer, filtering through a speakerphone: “Enough theatrics, Evelyn. Secure the prototype and exfiltrate. The Geneva contact will meet Marcus at the usual drop.”

Marcus: “Thorne says the diversion is in place. The police will have Stalker’s face and prints all over a weapons cache in his flat.”

Evelyn: “Tell Michael his bonus is contingent on a clean Rogers exit. Permanent or otherwise.”

The older voice—Thorne: “The consortium does not pay for messes. Clean it yourselves.” Click.

The recording ended. Anton felt a chill that had nothing to do with the safe house’s damp. The dispassionate tone, the casual ordering of his murder. This was the betrayal, stripped bare.

“He’s on there,” Sabatine said quietly. “Conspiracy to commit theft, corporate espionage, and solicitation of murder. It’s enough to start a war.”

Anton turned to the window, watching the first rays of sun gild the rooftops of Carouge. The emotional storm had passed, leaving a landscape of crystalline resolve. The hurt was still there—a deep, bruising ache—but it was encased in steel.

“He’ll be at the London headquarters today,” Anton said. “He’ll be monitoring the chaos from his oak-paneled office, expecting a call confirming my death or disappearance. He’ll be preparing to step in as ‘steady hand’ to save the company, with the consortium’s backing.”

“So we don’t call him,” Sabatine said, coming to stand beside him. Their shoulders almost touched. “We go to him. We turn his stage into ours.”

Anton looked at Sabatine—really looked at him. The fatigue, the pain, the unwavering fortitude. This man, accused and hunted, had seen the truth when Anton, in all his fortified pride, had been blind. He hadn’t just saved his life in the tunnels. He’d handed him back his soul, dirty and battered, but his own.

“We broadcast it,” Anton stated, the plan forming fully. “Not to the police first. To the board. To every major financial news outlet. A live, encrypted feed from the heart of Rogers Industries. We play the tape. We present the evidence. We burn his legacy to the ground before he can steal it.”

Sabatine’s eyes met his, a flicker of fierce pride in their depths. “It’s a siege. And we’re outnumbered.”

“But we have the truth,” Anton replied. “And we have each other.” He reached out, his fingers brushing Sabatine’s. The touch was no longer a shock, but a confirmation. “You’re not just my investigator anymore, Sabatine.”

“No,” Sabatine agreed, lacing their fingers together. His hand was warm, scarred, solid. “I’m your partner in crime. Now let’s go crash a boardroom.”

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