Chapter 8 - The Confrontation
“One more step, Emmett, and I’ll paint this server room with her brains!” Victor screamed, his eyes wild and maniacal. He looked haggard, his face scarred from the fire five years ago, his sanity clearly slipping away.
Emmett stopped, raising his hand to signal Marco and the men to hold their fire. The room was deathly quiet, save for the loud, rhythmic humming of the servers and the frantic ticking of the digital countdown on the main monitor.
03:15… 03:14… 03:13… Three minutes until the data was broadcasted to the FBI.
“It’s over, Victor,” Emmett said, his voice dropping into a dangerously calm, conversational tone. “Your hit squad at my estate is dead. Your men upstairs are being wiped out. You have nowhere left to run.”
“I don’t need to run!” Victor laughed hysterically, pressing the barrel of the gun harder into Diana’s temple. “The moment that clock hits zero, you are ruined, Emmett! The Cross empire falls! And I’ll take this beautiful little bird with me to hell!”
Diana looked at Emmett through her tears, her voice shaking but brave. “Emmett… Luna… did she make it? Is she safe?”
Emmett looked directly into Diana’s eyes. “She’s safe, Diana. She’s at my house, wrapped in warm blankets, waiting for her mother. I have her locket right here.” He tapped his chest.
A profound look of peace washed over Diana’s face. She looked up at Victor, her fear suddenly vanishing, replaced by the fierce, unyielding strength of a mother who knew her child was protected. “You lost, Victor,” she whispered. “You already lost.”
“Shut up!” Victor roared, his attention shifting down to Diana for a split second in his fury.
That split second was all Emmett needed.
Emmett didn't draw his gun; he lunged forward with a speed that defied his massive frame. At the same moment, Diana threw her weight forward, tipping the heavy steel chair over and pulling Victor off balance.
Victor’s gun went off, the bullet shattering a server rack in a shower of sparks.
Emmett closed the distance, his hands clamping onto Victor’s wrist like a steel vise. He twisted the weapon out of Victor’s grip, sending it clattering across the concrete floor. Victor screamed in rage, swinging a wild punch that caught Emmett across the jaw, but Emmett didn't even flinch.
Emmett grabbed Victor by the collar of his expensive coat, lifting him entirely off the ground, and slammed him against the glowing server rack. The electrical current surged through the broken metal, shocking Victor, making him scream in agony.
“Five years ago, I gave you a chance to leave this city alive,” Emmett hissed, his face inches from Victor’s. “I told you that if you ever brought your filthy trade back to Chicago, I would personally bury you. You should have stayed dead, Victor.”
With a final, powerful surge of strength, Emmett threw Victor across the room. Victor crashed into the main control console, smashing the screens and collapsing into a heap of broken glass and severed wires. He lay there, twitching, completely incapacitated.
Emmett immediately turned to Diana, drawing his tactical knife and cutting the thick ropes binding her to the chair. He pulled her to her feet, supporting her as her knees buckled from exhaustion.
“Marco! The server!” Emmett shouted.
Marco was already at the main terminal, plugging in the flash drive Tommy had given them. “Tommy’s program is running, Boss! It’s wiping the servers… data deletion at forty percent… sixty percent… eighty percent… Done! The false files are completely destroyed. The FBI is getting nothing but blank static.”
Emmett looked down at Victor, who was groaning on the floor, looking up at him with a mixture of terror and defeat.
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“Leave him for the police,” Emmett ordered Marco. “With his server network exposed, the feds will find all the real evidence of his trafficking ring. He will spend the rest of his miserable life in a maximum-security dungeon.”
Emmett wrapped his heavy wool coat around Diana’s shivering shoulders, gently guiding her out of the ruined room. “Let’s go home, Diana. Someone is waiting for you.”
