[Ethan’s POV]
The Hotel Sacher was a monunt to Viennese luxury, its lobby a sea of red velvet, crystal chandeliers, and polished marble.
I sat in a high-backed leather chair near the bar, nursing a glass of sparkling water. I had spent the last of our euros on a decent haircut and a shave at a local barber, washing the gri of Odesa off my face. I still wore the cheap canvas jacket, but I looked respectable enough not to draw the imdiate attention of the hotel security.
I was watching the elevators.
Isabella Vane’s summit was the most exclusive event in Europe. The people attending weren’t just rich; they were the apex predators of the financial underworld. I needed targets who matched my build and Claire’s, and I needed their invitations.
At 8:00 PM, the elevator doors chid open.
A man and a woman stepped out. The man was in his late twenties, built like a swimr, wearing a bespoke tuxedo that scread Savile Row. The woman was stunning, wearing a floor-length erald silk gown and a diamond necklace that caught the light of the chandeliers. They moved with the arrogant, untouchable swagger of people who owned the world.
I recognized the man from the dossiers Nia had made us morize back in DC. Julian Croft. He was a high-level hedge fund manager who specialized in laundering cartel money through European real estate. He was one of Isabella’s top earners.
I stood up, leaving my water on the table, and followed them at a discreet distance.
They walked out of the hotel and turned down a quiet, cobblestone side street, heading toward a private black car waiting at the corner.
Close the gap, Darius’s voice whispered in my mind. Strike before they know they’re in a fight.
I accelerated, my boots making no sound on the stones.
As Croft reached for the door handle of the car, I stepped up right behind him. I didn’t draw my gun. I slipped my arm around his throat, locking in a flawless rear naked choke, and dragged him backward into the shadows of a narrow alleyway.
The woman spun around, her mouth opening to scream.
I swept my leg out, catching her behind the knees. She fell backward, and I caught her before she hit the ground, pressing a pressure point on the side of her neck. Her eyes rolled back, and she went limp in my arms.
Croft was thrashing wildly, his hands clawing at my arm, but I held the choke tight. Ten seconds later, his eyes fluttered shut, and his body went slack.
I dragged them both behind a row of industrial trash bins. I worked quickly, stripping Croft of his tuxedo jacket, trousers, and shoes. I carefully removed the erald gown from the woman, leaving them both in their undergarnts. I used zip-ties from my duffel bag to bind their wrists and ankles, and taped their mouths shut. They would wake up in an hour with a massive headache and a bruised ego, but they would live.
I searched Croft’s jacket pockets. Inside, I found two heavy, gold-foil invitations embossed with the crest of the Hofburg Palace.
"Thank you for your contribution to the war effort," I muttered, stuffing the clothes into my bag and lting back into the Vienna night.
When I returned to the hostel, Claire was pacing the small room, her eyes glued to Jake’s notebooks.
"I got the suits," I said, dropping the duffel bag on the bed. "And the invitations. We’re in."
Claire didn’t look at the clothes. She looked at , her eyes wide with a sudden, frantic realization.
"Ethan, I was wrong," she said, pointing to the chemical equations scribbled in the margins of the notebook. "I spent the last two hours running the math on these compounds. It’s not a lethal gas."
I stopped unbuttoning my jacket. "What is it?"
"It’s a highly concentrated, aerosolized derivative of carfentanil and halothane," Claire explained, her finger tapping the page. "It’s a heavy, non-lethal knockout agent. If he pumps this into the Hofburg Palace’s ventilation system, it won’t kill anyone. It will just put every single person in that ballroom to sleep in under sixty seconds."
I stared at her, the pieces rapidly clicking into place. "He doesn’t want to kill Isabella."
"Death is too easy," Claire said, her voice filled with a mixture of awe and dread. "Jake is a conqueror, Ethan. Isabella stripped him of his empire, his mind, and his dignity. He doesn’t want to assassinate her. He wants to ruin her. He wants to take everything she has."
"The summit," I realized, looking at the gold-foil invitations on the bed. "Isabella is bringing all her top investors together to pledge their capital for the war against Vanguard. They’re going to have physical collateral. Bearer bonds, encrypted hard drives, offshore account ledgers."
"The Crown Jewels of her European syndicate," Claire nodded. "They’ll be holding them in a temporary, high-security vault inside the palace during the gala. Jake is going to put the entire party to sleep, walk right past her elite PMCs, and rob her blind."
I let out a low whistle. It was brilliant. It was terrifying. It was classic Jake Hart, amplified by the cold, calculating power of the Oracle.
"If he pulls this off," I said, "Isabella’s investors will turn on her. She’ll lose her funding. The corporate siege on Vanguard in DC will collapse."
"This isn’t the end of the war, Ethan," Claire said softly, looking out the window toward the glittering lights of the city center. "This is the opening salvo. He’s forcing Isabella out into the open."
"But Varga knows he’s coming," I said, the mory of the ex-FBI agent’s dead eyes flashing in my mind. "Varga survived the train. He’s already in Vienna. And if he figures out Jake’s play with the ventilation system, he’ll be waiting for him in the dark."
I walked over to the bed and picked up the bespoke tuxedo.
"Get dressed," I told Claire, tossing her the erald gown. "Jake is walking into a trap. We have to intercept him before Varga puts a bullet in his head."
Claire caught the silk dress, her expression hardening into the fierce, determined look of a Vanguard executive going to war.
"Let’s go crash a party," she said.
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