Chapter 8 : The Bankrupt Alliance.

POV: Elena

"Get away from her, Diana."

Alexander's voice was a low, terrifying growl as he pulled me tighter against his bare, bruised chest. His heartbeat was hammering wildly against my cheek. Even in the mud, with his entire empire stolen, he stood like a king ready to tear down anyone who approached us.

Diana Sterling laughed, a dry, aristocratic sound, and leaned heavily on her silver cane. "Look at yourself, Alexander. You are bleeding, you are bankrupt, and your security chief is dying in the front seat of a garbage truck. You have no cards left to play. I am the only one with a helicopter and a private medical team that can save your twins. Unless you want to deliver them in a mud puddle."

"We don't need your charity," I said, my voice cracking as I held Leo closer to my hip. "You kept this a secret for twenty-five years? You let me grow up thinking I was an orphan while you sat on billions?"

"Nathaniel Vance paid for your erasure, Elena," Diana said, her sharp gray eyes narrowing. "He threatened to destroy the Sterling Group if I ever claimed you. But now he is dead, and his useless grandson just handed Vance Global to Vivian on a silver platter. I am here to reclaim my bloodline."

"She isn't a commodity, Diana." Alexander stepped forward, his bare feet sinking into the marsh mud. He didn't have a weapon, but the sheer size of his silhouette made Diana's two bodyguards instantly reach into their black jackets. "Order your men to step back, or I will use their own bones to break your cane."

"Alex, stop," I whispered, grabbing his arm. The skin of his bicep was burning hot, covered in dark lacerations from the floodwaters. "Look at Leo. His lips are turning blue again. We don't have time to fight her."

Alexander looked down at Leo, his jaw clenching so hard the bone looked ready to pop through his skin. He hated this. He hated being powerless. For five years, he ruled the Capital with a single word, and now he had to bargain for his son's breath.

"Fine," Alexander spat, glaring at Diana. "We take the helicopter. But if your doctors touch a single hair on my children's heads without Elena's direct supervision, I will crash that chopper into the ocean myself."

"Deal," Diana smiled coldly. "Get in."

---

POV: Alexander

The luxury helicopter cabin was dead silent except for the rhythmic thumping of the blades above us.

An hour had passed. The medical team had already hooked Elena up to a clean saline drip, stabilization fluid running smoothly into her arm. Leo was asleep on the leather bench opposite us, a small oxygen mask covering his nose, his color finally returning to normal.

I sat on the floorboards between the two seats, my hands resting on Elena's knees. I was wearing a clean black shirt Diana's assistant had thrown at me, but I refused to let the doctors patch my own wounds. My eyes were fixed on the small ultrasound monitor resting on Elena's lap.

Two small, steady lights were still blinking on the black screen.

Thump-thump-thump-thump.

Elena reached down, her fingers tangling in my hair, pulling my head gently against her thigh. Her touch was the only thing keeping the violent, murderous urge in my chest from exploding.

"We lost everything, Alex," she whispered, her eyes staring out the dark window at the passing clouds. "The Vance name is worthless now. Vivian has the master key."

"She has the buildings, Elena," I said, my voice rough as I leaned up and pressed my lips hard against the palm of her hand, tasting the faint metallic tang of laboratory soap. "She has the stocks. But she doesn't have the synthesis key for the stem-cell protocol. You locked it in your private database before we left the tower. Am I right?"

Elena looked down at me, a tiny, lethal spark returning to her dark eyes. "I deleted the primary sequence from the mainframe the second you signed the vault access addendum. The only copy in existence is encrypted inside Leo's pediatric medical tracking watch."

I smiled, a dark, dangerous satisfaction filling my veins. I reached over, gently touching the small blue digital watch on Leo's sleeping wrist. "Then Vivian bought a hollow shell. She can't manufacture the biotech line without us. She's going to default on the Swiss cartel loans within forty-eight hours."

"Which means she will come after Leo with everything she has left," Diana Sterling interrupted from the front seat, turning her head around to look at us. "And she won't be using corporate lawyers this time. She has the Astorian royal family providing her with military assets."

"Let them come," I growled, standing up and sliding onto the seat next to Elena. I wrapped my arm around her waist, pulling her hips flush against mine, letting her feel the absolute finality of my grip. "I built Vance Global from a regional shipping firm into a global superpower in three years. I can burn it down in two days."

The helicopter suddenly pitched sharply to the left, the warning alarms on the dashboard blaring into the cabin.

"What's happening?" Diana shouted to the pilot.

"Madam, we have a radar lock!" the pilot yelled back, his hands sweating on the controls. "It's a commercial surface-to-air missile tracking system from the old industrial port! Someone is forcing us down!"

Through the glass windshield, a blinding streak of white smoke tore through the gray clouds, heading straight for our tail rotor.

---

POV: Elena

"Brace!" Alexander screamed.

He didn't try to find a seatbelt. He threw his entire massive frame over me and Leo, pinning us against the floorboards of the cabin just as the missile detonated thirty yards away.

The shockwave tore the side door completely off its hinges. The freezing wind rushed into the cabin, scattering medical papers and syringes everywhere. The helicopter spun violently, the engine screaming as we began a rapid, terrifying spiral toward the private runway of the Sterling estate below.

The impact was a brutal explosion of tearing metal and shattering glass.

I blacked out for a split second. When I opened my eyes, the cabin was upside down, smelling of raw fuel and smoke. Alexander was already awake, his face covered in fresh blood, using his bare shoulder to force the crushed emergency exit door open.

"Elena! Move!" he choked out, coughing through the black smoke. He grabbed Leo first, tossing him out into the manicured grass of the estate lawn, then reached back in to drag me out by my waist.

We tumbled onto the grass just as the fuel tank ignited, a massive fireball blowing the helicopter into a charred skeleton behind us.

Diana Sterling was crawling through the grass a few yards away, her silver cane snapped in half, her assistants screaming in the wreckage.

From the edge of the private runway, three luxury white sedans pulled up, their doors flying open. But the men who stepped out weren't wearing Vivian's black jackets, and they didn't have the Astorian gold crest.

They were wearing the dark blue uniforms of the Federal Security Bureau.

A middle-aged man with sharp features and a gold badge pinned to his lapel walked forward, flanked by twelve heavily armed agents. He looked down at Alexander, then at me, pulling a pair of silver handcuffs from his belt.

"Chairman Alexander Vance," the officer said, his voice cold and official. "You are under arrest for treason, illegal genetic trafficking, and the premeditated murder of your grandfather, Nathaniel Vance."

I froze, my hand clutching my bleeding stomach as I stared at the badge. "What? Nathaniel died of a heart attack five years ago!"

"That's what the Vance family reported," the officer smiled, a sick, satisfied grin that made my blood run cold. "But ten minutes ago, the new CEO of Vance Global, Vivian West, delivered the exhumation report to the federal court. Your grandfather's tissue samples were packed with the exact synthetic blood formula you synthesized in Europe, Dr. Lin. The formula in his heart was time-released. It only activated when you signed the marriage contract. You didn't cure your son. You used Alexander to kill the patriarch five years ago to trigger the inheritance clause."

The officer stepped forward, slamming the heavy steel cuffs around Alexander's wrists.

Alexander didn't fight back. He looked past the officer, his eyes locking onto the lead sedan.

The rear tinted window of the car rolled down slowly.

Sitting in the backseat was Mark. His broken leg was set in a professional medical splint, his face completely clean of the warehouse blood, holding a smoking digital recorder in his hand.

Mark didn't look at Alexander. He looked at the federal officer and nodded. "The target is secured, Director. The asset transfer is complete. I want my payment in the Swiss account by midnight."

Alexander turned to me, cuffs cutting into his wrists, and smiled. A cold, deadly smile. "Good. Now we know who the real enemy is."