Chapter 8 - The Syndicate’s Reach
Within minutes, the heavy screech of armored tires echoed outside as Luca Romano’s primary strike team breached the courtyard, overwhelming the remaining mercenaries in a brief, brutal firefight.
The smoke cleared to reveal silence in the lobby.
Luca walked through the shattered glass doors, his expression dark as thunder. He looked at the bound mercenaries zip-tied on the floor, then at Julian Vance, who was currently kneeling on the linoleum with his hands locked behind his head.
“Well,” Luca muttered, holstering his weapon. “Looks like our doctor friend had higher aspirations than local academic research.”
“He was working for an external syndicate,” Isabella said, pocketing her pistol and adjusting her coat cuffs. “They wanted our sovereign trust encryption keys.”
Luca stepped up to Julian, grabbing the doctor by his collar and hauling him to his feet. “Who is your handler, Vance? Give me a name, or your next medical procedure will be performed by a veterinarian with a rusty scalpel.”
Julian coughed, blood trickling from a scratch on his cheek, but a defiant, maniacal smile appeared on his lips. “You... you can kill me, Luca. But the syndicate... they’ve already planted roots inside your primary banking network in Zurich and Geneva. By tomorrow morning, your accounts will be frozen, your assets seized, and the Romano empire will crumble from within.”
Isabella stepped forward, her gaze piercing right through Julian’s hollow bravado.
“My family’s banking network isn’t hosted on standard servers, Doctor,” Isabella said softly, a chilling smile touching her lips. “It’s decentralized across cold-storage blockchain nodes that require my biometric signature and my grandfather’s physical key to access. If anyone tries to hack our primary vault without my authorization, the system doesn't just lock—it triggers an automatic asset wipe that drains every connected shell company dry.”
Julian’s eyes widened in sheer horror. “You... you anticipated a cyber-heist?”
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“I anticipated that fools like you would eventually crawl out of the woodwork,” Isabella replied smoothly. “Uncle Luca, take him to the basement vault. Let him watch our system purge his sponsors’ bank accounts in real-time.”
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