Chapter 19 - The Fire In The Sky
By midnight, Vance Global was no more.
The papers had been filed with the federal court. The corporate restructuring was irreversible. The four-billion-dollar empire had been dismantled, fragmented, and restructured into a legacy that no corporate assassin could ever inherit.
Dante and I stood on the private helipad of Vance Tower, the biting November wind whipping our coats around our ankles. The lights of Chicago stretched beneath us like an endless carpet of gold and sapphire embers.
Beside us, the luxury medical helicopter waited, its rotors spinning slowly, prepared to fly us to the private estate in Jackson Hole, Wyoming—a sanctuary protected by four thousand acres of private wilderness, where our children could grow up seeing only mountains and stars.
Mateo and Clara were securely buckled into their transport pods inside the cabin, attended by two private pediatric nurses.
I stood beside Dante at the edge of the helipad, looking down at the street where our lives had begun six years ago.
"Is it finally over?" I asked, leaning my head against his shoulder.
Dante wrapped his good arm around me, pulling me tight against his warmth. "It’s over, Lena. The money is locked away in trust for the children's hospitals. The board is gone. Roman will spend the rest of his natural life in a supermax facility. There’s nothing left to fight for."
"We can just be ordinary?"
"As ordinary as two broken people can be," he murmured, kissing the crown of my head. "We’re going home."
He took my hand, turning toward the open door of the helicopter.
Just as his boot touched the metal skid of the aircraft, the pilot’s radio crackled to life with a violent burst of static that cut through the rotor wash.
It wasn't air traffic control. It was an unlisted tactical frequency.
*“Vance-One, do not take off. Repeat, do not initiate departure.”*
Dante stopped, his entire posture instantly locking back into rigid tension. He reached into the cockpit and grabbed the pilot’s headset, pressing it to his ear. "Identify yourself."
*“Look across the river, Dante,”* a distorted, synthesized voice whispered through the radio. *“Look at the terrace of the Montgomery residence.”*
Dante’s eyes snapped toward the luxury high-rise penthouse across the Chicago River—the residence belonging to Sienna Montgomery’s family.
A massive, blinding flash of orange fire erupted from the top three floors of the tower.
The shockwave hit us seconds later, a violent wall of displaced air that rattled the helicopter’s blades and sent a deafening *BOOM* rolling across the concrete canyons of the city. Black smoke billowed into the night sky, illuminated by roaring flames that consumed the entire penthouse.
"Sienna..." I gasped, my hands flying to my mouth in horror.
Through the radio, the synthesized voice laughed—a chilling, mechanical sound that made my blood turn to liquid nitrogen.
*“Did you really think Roman Vance was the mastermind, Dante? Roman was just an impatient dog on a very long leash. You gave away your company. You gave away your voting shares. But you forgot the most important rule your father taught you.”*
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Dante gripped the radio transceiver so hard the plastic cracked beneath his fingers. "Who are you?"
*“Check Clara’s transport bassinet, Dante. Look inside the lining of her medical band.”*
