Chapter 12 - Broken Chains
Marcus’s posture went rigid. ""What happened to the transport?""
""The federal transport van was ambushed on Route 9,"" Callahan said, the sound of police sirens audible in the background of the call. ""Two armed vehicles boxed them in at an underpass. Smoke grenades, high-caliber rifles. The marshals were incapacitated, but none were killed. Julian was extracted.""
Marcus stood up, walking toward the suite's private balcony to ensure Nia and Evelyn couldn't hear the conversation. ""Who extracted him? Julian didn't have that kind of paramilitary muscle left.""
""We don't know yet,"" Callahan replied grimly. ""Vanessa Cole was in a separate transport vehicle, and she’s already at the county detention facility. But Julian... he had external benefactors we didn't account for. Check your corporate acquisitions from last year, Mr. Vance. Who was funding his offshore front, Aegis Holdings?""
Marcus racked his brain. Aegis Holdings had attempted a hostile takeover six months prior, but Marcus had successfully blocked it using an emergency poison-pill shareholder strategy. He had assumed it was purely Julian’s shell operation.
""Aegis wasn't just Julian,"" Marcus realized with sudden clarity. ""Julian didn't have forty million dollars in liquid capital to attempt that buyout. Someone else was bankrolling him.""
""We’re issuing a federal manhunt across five states,"" Callahan said. ""We’re assigning a permanent security detail to your family at the hospital until Nia is discharged and relocated to a secure facility.""
Marcus hung up the phone, staring out over the sprawling city skyline. The nightmare wasn't over. Julian was merely a pawn on a much larger chessboard.
Marcus returned to the room. Nia looked at him, her intuition instantly picking up on the tension in his shoulders. ""What is it, Marcus?""
Marcus took a breath, deciding against keeping secrets ever again. ""Julian escaped during prison transport. Someone pulled him out.""
Evelyn gasped, pulling Maya into her lap. Nia’s face went pale, but her eyes remained steady. ""Who would risk a federal prison break for Julian?""
""The people who really own Aegis Holdings,"" Marcus said, opening his laptop and accessing the encrypted corporate archives he had seized from Vanessa’s office. ""I’m going to find out who signed those guarantor bonds.""
He began cross-referencing the transaction hashes with international banking registries. After thirty minutes of decryption, the parent holding company behind Aegis emerged from the digital fog: The Sterling-Cross Syndicate.
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Marcus felt a cold sweat break across his back. Sterling-Cross was headed by Arthur Cross—Marcus’s former mentor, the veteran logistics titan who had given Marcus his first venture capital loan ten years ago, and the godfather to Marcus’s deceased father.
Arthur Cross had sat at Marcus’s Thanksgiving table every November for a decade.
