Chapter 3 - The Encirclement
The security monitors on Alejandro’s desk flickered to life as he rapidly tapped the override code. The split-screen display showed the thirty-eighth-floor service corridor.
A woman wearing immaculate black heels and a striking, blood-red trench coat stepped out of the service elevator. Her blonde hair was pulled into a severe chignon, and her face was carved into an expression of cold, unyielding calculation. It was Victoria Vance—the senior vice-president of legal affairs for Salvatierra Enterprises, and the woman who had drafted the board’s most ruthless corporate hostile takeovers.
Alejandro stared at the screen in disbelief. Victoria? For ten years, she had been his most trusted legal advisor, the woman who sat to his right during every board meeting.
On the monitor, Victoria didn't look like a corporate executive executing a legal strategy. She reached into her handbag, withdrew a silenced micro-pistol with practiced ease, and tapped a keying device against the electronic lock of Alejandro’s private office door.
Bypass successful.
The digital lock flashed green.
Alejandro stepped back from the desk, sliding his father’s ledger and birth certificate into his inner coat pocket. He drew his desk drawer open, retrieving the licensed tactical firearm he kept locked away for emergencies—a weapon he had never expected to use inside his own office.
The heavy oak door slowly pushed open.
Victoria Vance stepped into the room, her red heels clicking rhythmically against the hardwood floor. She didn't look surprised to find Alejandro standing by the windows, gun resting safely at his side.
“It’s disappointing, Alejandro,” Victoria said smoothly, her voice as calm as if they were discussing quarterly tax returns. “Your father was a brilliant man, but he grew soft at the end. Trying to rewrite the corporate charter for an illegitimate infant born from a back-alley surrogate? It’s pathetic.”
“You knew,” Alejandro said, his voice dangerously low. “You knew about the child, and you knew about my father’s intentions.”
“Of course I knew,” Victoria smiled thinly, adjusting the lapel of her red coat. “The foundation belongs to the board—to the people who actually built this empire, not to some stray child picked up from the streets. Where is the baby, Alejandro? Hand her over, and we can pretend this entire morning was just a bad executive decision.”
“You’re talking about a five-month-old infant, Victoria,” Alejandro stepped forward, keeping his body positioned squarely between her and the panic corridor leading to the archive room. “You sent men to terrorize two little girls in the freezing rain?”
“Business is cold, Alejandro,” Victoria replied, raising the silenced pistol slightly, her eyes locking onto his with predatory coldness. “And humanity is an expensive luxury we stopped paying for long ago. Now, step aside. The white van downstairs is already cleared to transport the child to a secure offshore medical facility where her existence can be... permanently resolved.”
Before Victoria could pull the trigger, the overhead lights in the office flickered and died.
The automated emergency backup system kicked in with a low hum, bathing the room in a dim, amber glow. But it wasn't a power failure.
A sharp chime echoed from the main entrance doors.
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Someone had just overridden the master building grid from the basement control room. And based on the emergency codes flashing on Alejandro’s console, the internal security network had just locked down every single floor in the tower.
Someone inside the building was fighting back.
