Chapter 92: The Glass Gallery

The hush of the Alps was not peaceful. It was a held breath.

Anton stared out the tinted window of the Range Rover as it climbed the final, serpentine stretch of road to Whispering Peaks. The villa, a stark geometric sculpture of glass and bleached stone, was pinned against the gunmetal sky, overlooking the deep, snow-filled valley like a sentinel. Or a trap. Every instinct honed in a thousand boardrooms, every paranoid fiber his father’s betrayal had woven into him, screamed that this was wrong.

“It’s too quiet,” he said, his voice flat in the sealed cabin.

Beside him, Sabatine didn’t move, his gaze fixed on the same imposing structure. “It’s not just quiet. It’s staged.” Sabe’s voice was low, a gravelly contrast to the plush interior. “No movement from the perimeter security lights. No vapor from the heating vents. It’s a set piece.”

The invitation had been a masterstroke, leveraging the last frayed thread of family duty. Marcus, Anton’s half-brother, had been uncharacteristically contrite, his communication laced with just enough proprietary data about the stolen ‘Aegis’ prototype to be tantalizing. Come alone to Whispering Peaks, he’d written. I have what you seek. We can end this as family, not foes. Anton had known it was a lie. But a lie with a hook in truth was the most dangerous kind.

He hadn’t come alone, of course. He’d brought Sabatine. Bringing Sabe was no longer a professional calculation; it was a physiological need, like oxygen. The man was a fracture in his armor, a vulnerability he’d stopped trying to seal. Now, he watched as Sabatine’s eyes, the colour of a winter sea, scanned the terrain with a predatory stillness Anton found both terrifying and profoundly calming.

“East ridge, eleven o’clock,” Sabatine murmured, his body coiled but motionless. “Sun glare on a lens. Not professional. Too eager.”

Anton followed the subtle direction. A tiny, unnatural wink of light in the dense cluster of pines. His stomach tightened. “Sniper?”

“Observer. For now.” Sabatine’s jaw flexed. “The real threat will be inside. The offer of the prototype is the cheese. We’re the mice.”

“I am not a mouse,” Anton replied, the old arrogance flaring automatically.

A ghost of a smile touched Sabatine’s lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “No. You’re the billionaire the cat wants to play with. Which is worse.”

The Rover crunched to a halt in the vast, empty courtyard, the sound swallowed by the snow. The driver, a trusted man from the Geneva office, glanced nervously in the rearview. Anton placed a hand on Sabatine’s forearm, feeling the steel-cable tension beneath the sleeve of his dark wool coat. The touch was a question, a transfer of intent.

“We walk into the lie,” Sabatine said, understanding perfectly. “We see the shape of it. Then we break it.”

“Together,” Anton stated. It wasn’t a request.

Sabatine met his gaze, and in those grey depths, Anton saw the same terrifying cocktail of duty, fear, and a ferocious, nascent thing that still didn’t have a safe name. “Always,” Sabe said, the word a vow that hung between them, warmer than the Alpine air.

They exited the vehicle, the cold hitting them like a slap. The air was thin, scentless, dead. Anton adjusted his cashmere scarf, the navy silk a whisper against his skin, a relic of a world of soft power that felt galaxies away. Sabatine fell into step just behind and to his left, his posture deceptively casual, but Anton had learned to read the readiness in him—the slight forward balance, the way his hands were free of his pockets, the constant, microscopic adjustments of his gaze.

The massive oak door swung open before Anton could raise a hand. Not Marcus, but Evelyn Voss, his CFO, stood in the cavernous, heated hallway. She was a vision of poised malice in a cream Valentino suit, her blonde hair a perfect helmet.

“Anton. You’re… punctual.” Her smile was a gash of red. Her eyes flickered to Sabatine, and the warmth drained from them, replaced by glacial contempt. “And you brought the help. How… loyal.”

“Evelyn.” Anton kept his voice neutral, though the sight of her here, in Marcus’s sanctuary, confirmed the deepest layer of the betrayal. It wasn’t just his brother. It was his right hand. The woman who had overseen his empire’s finances for a decade. The hurt was a clinical, cold thing. “Where is Marcus?”

“Impatient.” She stepped back, allowing them entry. The door thudded shut behind them, the sound final. The interior was a study in minimalist luxury, all pale stone, exposed beams, and floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a breathtaking, terrifying view of the valley—a perfect panorama for anyone watching from the outside. “He’s in the viewing gallery. He’s been eager for a reunion.”

They followed her across the vast living area. Anton felt Sabatine’s absence at his back like a missing limb as Sabe subtly hung back, his pace slowing, his eyes cataloging exits, sightlines, potential weapons. A fruit bowl on a steel side table. A heavy-looking sculpture of twisted iron. Anton saw him register it all.

The viewing gallery was a glass box cantilevered over the cliff’s edge. Marcus stood with his back to them, looking every bit the prodigal son in a tailored shearling jacket. He turned, and his face was a mockery of brotherly warmth.

“Anton. You look well. Considering.” His gaze slid to Sabatine, who had stopped just inside the doorway, a dark, watchful shadow against the bright room. “And Mr. Stalker. The man who fell from grace and landed in my brother’s bed. Or was it the other way around?”

Anton ignored the barb. “You said you had the Aegis prototype.”

“I do.” Marcus spread his hands. “It’s here. The key to restoring Rogers Industries’ fortune. And mine.” His expression hardened. “Our father’s fortune. The one you stole from me.”

“It was never yours,” Anton said, the old anger a cold stone in his gut. “You would have burnt it to the ground for poker debts and cocaine.”

“And you’ve suffocated it in spreadsheets and paranoia!” Marcus shot back. He took a step forward. “But that’s past. I’m offering a trade. A simple one. Sign over forty percent of your voting shares to me. Publicly. Today. The prototype is returned, the leaks stop, and you get to keep your crumbling empire. Refuse…” He shrugged, nodding toward Evelyn, who had moved to a control panel by the wall.

She tapped a screen. A large monitor flickered to life, showing a live feed of a Zurich data centre—a Rogers Industries facility. A clock in the corner counted down from ten minutes. “The Aegis prototype,” Evelyn said smoothly, “isn’t just a shield. In the wrong configuration, it’s a master key. And a bomb. In nine minutes and forty-eight seconds, it will begin systematically erasing every server in that building. Your crown jewel data hub. Poof. Years of R&D, client contracts, black box projects… all gone. A digital Hiroshima.”

Anton’s blood turned to ice. He calculated, rapidly. The loss would be irrecoverable. It would topple the company.

Sabatine spoke from the doorway, his voice cutting through the panic like a knife. “The observer on the ridge. He’s not just watching. He’s your fail-safe. If anything happens to you, or if Anton doesn’t comply, he signals the trigger manually. Or he takes the shot.”

Marcus looked impressed. “Very good. Rico was always your best, wasn’t he? Pity he works for the highest bidder now.”

Rico. Sabatine’s old colleague. The one who knew where all the bodies were buried, including the civilians from Sabatine’s last, doomed mission. A piece of the chessboard clicked into place for Anton, revealing the depth of the trap. This wasn’t just about money or power. This was about eviscerating him completely—his company, his legacy, the man he loved.

Anton looked at Sabatine. He saw the name ‘Rico’ land, saw the old guilt and fury ignite in his eyes. This was Sabatine’s nightmare, resurrected and weaponized.

“So, brother,” Marcus said, picking up a tablet and holding it out. The share transfer document glowed on the screen. “Sign. Or watch your life’s work vanish, and then we’ll see how long your bodyguard’s loyalty lasts when Interpol arrives for the infamous ‘Butcher of Belgrade.’”

The clock ticked down: 07:12.

Anton felt the walls closing in. The steel of his discipline warred with a rising tide of helpless rage. He looked from Marcus’s triumphant face to Evelyn’s cold smile, to the blinding white void beyond the glass. This was the vulnerability he had spent a lifetime fortifying against. This was the betrayal his father had warned him about, not in words, but in the silence of his grave.

Then his gaze found Sabatine’s again. And Sabe gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. No. His eyes were not resigned. They were alight with a fierce, calculated fire. He wasn’t seeing an end; he was seeing a move. The moral duty to save thousands of jobs, to protect the innocent data, warred with the emotional duty to the man he loved. Anton saw the conflict, and in that shared, silent look, he also saw the resolution.

Sabatine would break before he let Anton break. And Anton would burn his empire to the ground before he let them break Sabatine.

“The trade,” Anton said, his voice suddenly, strangely calm. He took a step toward Marcus, his hand outstretched for the tablet. “Let me see the full terms.”

As Marcus, smug, extended the tablet, and Anton’s fingers brushed it, Sabatine moved.

It wasn’t toward Marcus or Evelyn. It was an explosive, sideways dive toward the heavy iron sculpture. A shot cracked, the glass of the gallery wall spider-webbing where Sabatine’s head had been a split-second before. The observer on the ridge. Rico.

Chaos is a stark, violent contrast to the pristine silence. Anton dropped, using a sleek steel sofa as cover. Evelyn screamed, not in fear, but in fury, fumbling at the control panel. Marcus roared, scrambling for a pistol tucked at the back of his waistband.

Sabatine didn’t go for the gun. He hefted the twisted iron sculpture, a primal, powerful motion, and with a guttural shout, hurled it not at Marcus, but at the floor-to-ceiling window. The impact was thunderous. The triple-glazed panel, designed to withstand alpine storms, didn’t shatter, but webbed into a million crazed fragments, its structural integrity gone.

The howling mountain wind invaded the sterile space, a whirlwind of snow and freezing air. Papers, tablets, Evelyn’s perfect hair—everything was lashed into chaos.

“The signal!” Evelyn shrieked at Marcus over the gale. “The sniper link will be unstable through the storm!”

Another shot rang out, but it went wide, poking the stone wall. The wind, the disrupted sightlines—Rico was blinded.

Anton saw his chance. While Marcus was turned toward the ruined window, shouting into a comms unit, Anton surged from behind the sofa. He wasn’t a fighter, not like Sabatine. But he was ruthless. He drove his shoulder into the small of Marcus’s back, sending him stumbling toward the fractured glass.

Sabatine was already on Evelyn, immobilizing her wrist with one hand, his other pressing a shard of glass against her throat. “Shut it down!” he yelled into her ear, the wind stealing his words. “Now!”

Her eyes were wild with terror. She stabbed a code into the panel. The monitor flickered. The clock on the data centre feed froze.

00:47.

It was held.

A moment of suspended, breathless silence in the maelstrom. Then, a final, desperate crack of a rifle. This one did not go wide.

Anton saw Sabatine’s body jolt. A bloom of crimson erupted high on his right shoulder, spinning him around. He fell to his knees, his hand going to the wound, his face a mask of shock.

“Sabe!” The name was torn from Anton’s throat, a raw sound he didn’t recognize as his own.

Marcus, recovering, saw his opening. He raised his pistol, aiming not at Anton, but at the kneeling, wounded Sabatine. Hatendum twisted his features.

“You lose,” Marcus spat.

Anton didn’t think. He moved on an instinct deeper than survival. He threw himself forward, not to tackle Marcus, but to place his own body between the gun and Sabatine.

The two actions were simultaneous: Marcus’s finger tightening on the trigger, and a new, closer gunshot—from the doorway. Marcus jerked, a red flower blooming on his chest. He looked down, bewildered, then crumpled to the floor.

Standing in the doorway, smoke curling from a pistol in his steady hand, was Rico Nadir. His face was grim, etched with an old, tired pain. He looked past Anton, to where Sabatine bled onto the pale stone.

“Always were a sentimental idiot, Sabe,” Rico shouted over the wind. Then he vanished back into the shadows of the house.

The wind moaned through the shattered gallery. Evelyn sobbed, slumped against the controls. Marcus lay still. And Anton dropped to his knees beside Sabatine, his hands fluttering over the wound, applying pressure with the silk of his scarf, the expensive fabric soaking through instantly with warm, shocking red.

Sabatine’s eyes were open, fixed on Anton’s face. His breath came in ragged gasps. “Told you… you weren’t a mouse,” he managed.

“Don’t you dare,” Anton choked out, his composure ash. He cradled Sabatine’s head, his tears freezing on his cheeks. “Don’t you dare. That’s an order.”

Sabe’s blood-slick hand came up, weakly grasping Anton’s wrist. “Your… turn… to protect me.”

In the distance, the first wail of Swiss police sirens pierced the alpine storm. But in the ruins of the glass gallery, amidst the steel and the shadow and the spreading stain of crimson on white, there was only this: Anton Rogers, a billionaire brought to his knees, holding the only thing that had ever truly been worth the fortune he’d almost lost. The world of silk was gone. All that remained was the steel of his will, and the fragile, fire-forged heart beating weakly beneath his hands.

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