Chapter 165
Chapter 165
Ethan’s POV
The safe house hummed with tension. Langston’s intel was spread across the table—papers, hard drives, and encrypted files—like the fragments of a puzzle we were racing to solve. Everyone was working at a breakneck pace. Grayson was typing furiously on his laptop, Reyes was coordinating with our field teams, and Lila stood beside me, her steady presence calming me amid the chaos.
“Ethan,” Grayson called, not looking up from his screen. “We’ve got a hit. There’s a high-level meeting happening tonight. The top players of the syndicate appear to be regrouping.”
“Where?” I asked sharply.
"There is an underground club located in the financial district," he said. “By invitations only. And heavy security.”
“They’ll be on edge after the bunker and Langston’s defection,” Lila said, her voice calm but firm. “This might be our only chance to take them down in one sweep.”
Reyes crossed his arms. “It’s a trap waiting to happen. They will have securities, escape routes, and enough firepower to level the block.”
“We’ll be ready to meet them head-on,” I said. “We’ve come too far to slow down now.”
The club was a maze of flashing lights and heavy music, its opulence masking the rot beneath. We entered through the back, posing as security contractors with forged credentials Langston had provided. My heart pounded as we moved through the corridors, each step bringing us closer to the syndicate’s inner circle.
In my earpiece, Grayson’s voice was calm and steady. “You’re clear so far. The meeting room is on the top floor. You’ll need to use the service elevator.”
We reached the elevator without any trouble, but the ride up was anything but smooth. The tension was palpable, the silence broken only by the hum of the elevator. Lila’s hand brushed against mine briefly—a small, reassuring gesture that steadied my nerves.
Two guards greeted us when the doors opened. Reyes moved like lightning, disarming one and taking him down before he could react. I handled the other, a quick blow to his face rendering him unconscious.
“Nice work,” Lila said quietly as we dragged the guards into a supply closet.
“Let’s keep moving,” I said, adjusting my earpiece.
A long table dominated the large, dimly lit meeting room. Around it sat six men and women, each exuding the kind of arrogance that came with power. They didn’t notice us at first, too engrossed in their argument.
“This entire operation is falling!” one man shouted, slamming his fist on the table. “We’ve lost two bunkers, Dante is dead, and now Langston has turned on us!”
Another woman sneered. “And whose fault is that? If you hadn’t mess up the New York deal…”
“I didn't mess up nothing!” The man shouted back
“Enough!” barked an older man at the head of the table. His presence silenced the room. “We’ll deal with Langston and the others soon enough. For now, we focus on containment.”
It was time. I nodded to Reyes, and we bursted into the room, weapons drawn.
“Hands where we can see them!” I barked.
Chaos erupted. The syndicate members scrambled for cover, some reaching for weapons, but Reyes and I were faster. Within seconds, we had them pinned.
“Who’s in charge here?” Lila demanded, her voice cutting through the chaos like a blade.
The older man sneered at her. “You must be a fool if you think this changes anything? Cut off one head, and another grows in its place.”
“Not this time,” I said coldly. “We have your files, your accounts, and your contacts. It’s over.”
His confidence wavered for a split second before he lunged for a hidden panic button under the table. I fired, shattering the control panel before he could press it.
“You are going nowhere,” I said.
Grayson’s voice crackled in my ear. “Ethan, you’ve got incoming. A strike team is heading your way—elite operatives, heavily armed.”
“Of course, they are,” I muttered. “How long do we have?”
“Two minutes, tops.”
I turned to Lila. “Get the information we need. Reyes and I will hold them off.”
She nodded, her expression grim but determined.
The hallway was a war zone. Reyes and I took cover behind an overturned table as bullets echoed around us. The strike team moved with precision, their formation tight and methodical.
“Grayson, we could use some help here!” I shouted into my comm.
“On it,” he replied. “I’ve hacked into the building’s security system. Deploying countermeasures now.”
A series of loud bangs echoed down the hall as smoke grenades activated, filling the space with a thick, choking fog. It gave us the cover we needed to push back, our shots finding their marks as the operatives stumbled in the confusion.
“Fall back!” I shouted at Reyes as more reinforcements poured in.
Back in the meeting room, Lila was working frantically. She’d subdued the syndicate members and was extracting data from their laptops.
“Got it!” she said, holding up a flash drive.
“Time to go,” I said, helping her to her feet.
As we made our way to the exit, the older man from the syndicate called after us. “You think this is over? You are fools. The people we answer to are untouchable!”
I turned, offering a warm savage smile. “We’ll see about that.”
The escape was swift through gunfire and close calls. Grayson’s countermeasures bought us enough time to reach the extraction point, but not without cost. Reyes took a hit to the arm, and I had a gash along my side, but we made it out alive.
Back at the safe house, the atmosphere was electric. Grayson immediately began analyzing the data Lila had retrieved, his excitement growing with each passing second.
“Here,” he said, his voice filled with awe. “This connects everything—financial records, political bribes, blackmail material. It’s all here.”
“We’ve got them,” Lila said, her voice quiet but fierce.
"For the time being," I uttered, my thoughts already racing ahead. “They’ll most likely retaliate, and they will come for us with everything they’ve got.”
“Let them,” she replied, her eyes meeting mine. “We’re ready.”