Chapter - 280
The call ended with a dead, final click. For a single, frozen moment, Rick stood motionless, the phone still pressed to his ear.
The image of Nadia—bruised, slumped, and tied to that rusty chair—was burned onto the back of his eyelids. Cold fury, sharp and pure, sliced through the initial shock.
His mind, already a maelstrom of possibilities, began to churn, sorting threats, calculating odds, discarding impossibilities. The hundred-million-dollar figure was a joke, a deliberate non-option designed to force his hand.
It was the item. It was always about the item.
"Rick."
Sharon's voice cut through his thoughts, sharp and commanding.
She had moved to stand directly in front of him, her eyes narrowed, her entire posture radiating the coiled tension of a cop who knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that she was in the middle of something far bigger than a simple home invasion.
