Chapter 97: The Fractured Edge

For a handful of seconds, there was only the ringing aftermath of their victory. The digital monster was slain. The sterile, wind-scoured gallery held a fragile, shocked peace. Anton clutched the transparent case containing the Aegis chip, its weight negligible, its meaning monumental. Sabatine pushed himself upright from the terminal, his face pale as parchment beneath the smudges of blood and soot, his bandaged shoulder a stark flag of their ordeal.

The first Swiss police officers, clad in tactical gear, entered cautiously through the main hallway, weapons raised. They saw the shattered wall, the bloodstain on the floor, the bound woman weeping quietly, and the two men standing amidst the wreckage—one in a ruined suit that still cost more than their monthly salaries, the other looking like a casualty of a street fight.

“Hände hoch!" "Lasst es fallen!” The commands were sharp and guttural.

Anton slowly placed the case on the steel trolley and raised his hands, the model of cooperation. “My name is Anton Rogers. This is my head of security, Sabatine Stalker. The man responsible is dead. The woman, Evelyn Voss, is his accomplice. We have just disarmed a global cyber-threat.”

His voice was calm, authoritative, cutting through the tension. He was in his element now, not of violence, but of control, of narrative. He saw the lead officer’s eyes flicker with recognition at his name, then narrow with skepticism at the scene.

Sabatine mirrored the gesture, raising his hands, wincing as the movement pulled at his wound. His eyes, however, never stopped moving, cataloging the new arrivals, their positions, their weapon safeties. An operative’s habit, even in surrender.

It was then that another figure pushed through the cordon of police. Not an officer, but one of Marcus’s remaining hired guards, a hulking man with a shaved head and a neck like a tree trunk. He’d been secured in the kitchen, but in the chaos of the police entry, he’d been brought forward for identification. His eyes, small and dark, swept the room and landed on Sabatine.

Recognition, immediate and venomous, dawned on his face.

“Stalker,” the guard grunted, the word a curse. He took an involuntary step forward, held back by an officer’s arm. “Der Metzger von Belgrad.”

The Butcher of Belgrade.

The words, in guttural German, landed like a grenade in the fragile calm. The police tensed, their weapons shifting minutely. The nickname from shadowy intelligence briefings and underworld lore now had a face, here, in a billionaire’s shot-up villa.

“He is with me,” Anton stated, his voice hardening. “He is under my protection and was instrumental in—”

“He’s a war criminal!” the guard spat, struggling against the officer’s hold, his gaze locked on Sabatine with pure hatred. “I was in the 43rd! I saw the aftermath of that clusterfuck! He’s no security chief. He’s a ghost they should have buried!”

The lead officer’s face changed. The skepticism turned to cold, professional interest. A billionaire in a messy situation was one thing. A potential international fugitive was another. His radio crackled as he called in the new identifier.

Anton saw the shift, the recalculations happening behind the officer’s eyes. The neat story of corporate espionage was crumbling, replaced by something murkier, more dangerous. Sabatine stood perfectly still, but Anton could see the resignation settling over him, the old shadow rising to claim him. This was the vulnerability Anton had feared—not a bullet, but a name.

“Herr Stalker,” the lead officer said, his tone now formal and icy. “You will be detained for separate questioning. Please, come with me.”

It was not a request.

“He needs medical attention,” Anton insisted, stepping forward, instinctively placing himself between the officer and Sabatine.

“He will receive it. After processing.” The officer gestured. Two policemen moved toward Sabatine.

That’s when the guard, seeing his moment, made his move. Perhaps it was hatred, perhaps a misguided attempt at justice or a payoff from a dead employer. As the two officers reached for Sabatine’s arms, the big man broke free from the loose hold on him. He didn’t go for Sabatine. He lunged for the trolley, for the Aegis chip in its case.

“Nein!” an officer shouted.

The guard’s hand closed over the case just as another officer tackled him. They crashed into the side of the trolley, which skidded violently across the polished stone, slamming into the base of the fractured glass wall.

The impact was the final stress the compromised structure could bear.

With a sound like a glacier calving, a massive section of the triple-glazed wall gave way. Not the webbed, held-together pane from before, but a sheer, collapsing sheet of glass and steel frame. It plummeted outward into the night, and the screaming Alpine wind rushed in, a torrential, freezing force.

Chaos erupted.

Officers shouted, scrambling back from the sudden void. The guard and the officer wrestling on the floor rolled perilously close to the new, jagged edge overlooking the black valley. Papers, debris, and shattered crystal from the dinner were sucked out into the abyss.

In the maelstrom, Anton lost sight of Sabatine. He was buffeted by the wind, his eyes stinging. A strong hand clamped onto his bicep—not gentle.

“You must come, Herr Rogers. Now!” It was a different officer, his face set with panic, tasked with securing the high-value, non-combatant civilian. He began pulling Anton back, away from the balcony edge, toward the relative safety of the interior hallway.

“Wait—Stalker! Where is he?” Anton demanded, digging his heels in, searching the blur of movement.

He saw him then. Sabatine hadn’t been pulled back by the officers. He’d used the chaos, the sudden shift in focus, to drop low. He was on his knees near the toppled trolley, one hand pressed to his bleeding shoulder, the other gripping a jagged shard of the remaining window frame to anchor himself against the gale. And he was looking straight at Anton, his eyes wide, not with fear, but with a ferocious, unwavering refusal.

He shook his head, a sharp, clear motion. Don’t let them take you.

Then the officer pulling Anton yanked harder, and two more converged to assist, forming a human cordon around the billionaire asset. Anton was dragged backward, his expensive shoes slipping on the debris.

“Sabe!” The name was torn from his throat, lost in the wind.

Sabatine moved. It wasn’t a retreat. It was an attack. He surged to his feet, using the wind’s force to propel himself forward, ducking under the grasping hand of an officer who tried to stop him. He wasn’t trying to escape. He was cutting across the chaotic room, heading for the knot of officers surrounding Anton.

A pistol appeared in the hand of the lead officer, aimed at Sabatine’s center mass. “Halten Sie an! Stop!”

Sabatine didn’t stop. He was a man moving on a single, immutable directive: reach Anton.

The gunshot was sharp, definitive.

But it wasn't aimed at Sabatine. In the panicked moment, the guard, now free and scrambling near the balcony edge, had produced a small, concealed pistol of his own. Whether he meant to shoot Sabatine, an officer, or simply fire in panic was never clear.

The bullet struck the remaining glass of a wall sconce above Sabatine’s head, exploding it into a shower of diamond-like shards.

The effect was instantaneous. Everyone flinched. The officers around Anton dropped into defensive crouches, pulling him down with them, their priority now active fire. The lead officer swung his weapon toward the armed guard.

And in that fractured second of redirected attention, Sabatine closed the final distance. He didn’t tackle the officers. He simply inserted himself into their cordon, placing his body firmly between them and the direction of the threat, his back to Anton. He was a human shield, breathing heavily, blood soaking through the fresh bandage, his hands still raised but now in a gesture that was both surrender and defiance.

“The threat is there!” Sabatine barked, his voice cutting through the wind and panic, nodding toward the guard who was now being subdued in a violent heap by three officers. “He is secure! Anton Rogers is with me!”

He was taking control of the narrative of the moment, using the last of his credibility, his terrifying aura of competence, to redirect the flow of events. He was saying, without saying, I am the danger you need to manage, and I am choosing to protect him.

The lead officer, his weapon now trained on the subdued guard, looked from the chaotic scene at the balcony edge to the two men before him—the billionaire sheltered behind the bleeding, defiant ex-operative. The calculus was complex, but the immediate, physical threat was neutralized.

Anton, from behind Sabatine, placed a hand on his lower back, a point of contact, of solidarity, of possession. He felt the tremble of pain and adrenaline running through him. “Stand down,” Anton said, his voice ringing with the full authority of his name and his fortune. “My security director has just ensured no one was killed in that reckless fire. He needs a surgeon. Now. And we will give our statements together.”

The wind howled through the shattered gallery. The fight seemed to bleed out of the room, leaving only exhaustion and the biting cold. The lead officer, after a long, scrutinizing look at Sabatine’s pale, resolute face and Anton’s unyielding one, gave a curt nod. He holstered his weapon.

“Together,” the officer conceded, the word heavy with bureaucratic ambiguity. He gestured to a medic who had just rushed in. “See him first.”

As the medic approached, Sabatine finally allowed his shoulders to slump, the fierce energy draining. He leaned back slightly, into the solid, steady pressure of Anton’s hand.

They had been pulled apart by the storm, but he had fought through glass and gunfire and the ghosts of his past to stand at Anton’s side again. The edge of the balcony was a yawning maw of darkness, but on the fractured edge between chaos and order, they held their ground. Together.

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