Chapter 5 - The False Delivery
Arthur stepped out of the pantry holding the matte black titanium drive in the palm of his hand, its surface gleaming faintly under the harsh kitchen lights.
Julian Vance watched him approach with an expression of quiet satisfaction, his hands resting easily inside the deep pockets of his dark coat.
"I knew you were a practical man, Arthur," Julian said, extending a gloved hand to receive the device. "Intelligence always recognizes when a game is lost."
"Take it and get out of my house," Arthur said, stopping two paces away and extending his hand without letting go of the drive just yet. "And the digital copies? You wipe them from your servers as we agreed."
Julian’s smile faded into a neutral, businesslike mask as his fingers closed around the metal casing and yanked it from Arthur’s grip with sudden force.
"Agreed?" Julian chuckled softly, slipping the drive into his coat pocket. "Arthur, men in my position don't make pacts with debtors. We collect."
Before Arthur could react, the larger bodyguard lunged forward, slamming the butt of a heavy stun baton hard into Arthur’s ribs.
Arthur crumpled to the floor with a muffled gasp of agony, the wind knocked completely out of his lungs as white-hot pain radiated through his chest.
"Arthur!" Elena screamed, breaking past the second guard and dropping to her knees beside her husband, shielding him with her own body.
Lily began to cry openly now, her small hands dropping from her face as she watched her father gasping for breath on the floor.
Julian turned his back on them, walking slowly toward the open glass door where the cold night air was blowing heavy curtains inward.
"Secure the perimeter and clear the house," Julian instructed the two bodyguards without looking back. "Leave the woman and the child. They’ll make excellent leverage if Arthur decides to look for his lost files."
The bodyguard who had struck Arthur reached down, grabbing him by the collar of his ruined grey suit and dragging him upright against the kitchen counter.
"You missed one detail, Julian," Arthur wheezed, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth as a grim, defiant smile touched his lips.
Julian stopped at the threshold, turning his head slightly over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow of mild curiosity.
"And what might that be, Arthur?" Julian asked, his tone laced with bored amusement.
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"That drive you just pocketed?" Arthur whispered, coughing lightly as he spat a drop of blood onto the marble floor. "It’s a dead-man’s switch linked to federal prosecutors who received the real archives twenty minutes before you knocked on our door."
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