Read Chapter 16: A Final Twist

The burner phone vibrated against the bar top, the buzz swallowed by the roar of engines warming up somewhere beyond the casino’s marble walls. Alex glanced at the screen. Unknown number. Monaco prefix. His hand hovered over it, fingers twitching once before he forced them flat.

Zoe was across the room, pretending to study a race program. Jules was already in his pit-crew disguise, ready to roll under the grandstand the moment the formation lap began.

Alex answered.

“Renault.” Viktor’s voice was calm, almost pleasant. The kind of calm that made men sign their own death warrants. “I trust you’ve had a productive morning.”

“Productive enough.” Alex kept his voice even, leaned against the bar like he was ordering a drink. “Race day’s good for business. You should see the floor.”

A dry laugh crackled through the line. “I intend to. I’ll be on-site tonight. Arriving at eighteen hundred hours, sharp. I’ve cleared my calendar.”

Alex’s stomach dropped, but his face didn’t move. He’d known this was coming. The text, Viktor’s pattern of closing the loop in person, the way power players always wanted to see the whites of your eyes before they took their cut. Still, hearing it confirmed—that was different. That was a clock ticking in his skull.

“You’ll want to see the final numbers,” Alex said. “The settlement window is tight. The extraction runs right after the podium ceremony.”

“Which is precisely why I’ll be present to ensure the handoff goes smoothly. Given the magnitude of the risk I’m assuming, I believe the terms bear revisiting.” A pause. The sound of a lighter clicking. “Seventy-thirty.”

“Seventy-thirty,” Alex repeated slowly. “That’s a change from sixty-forty, Viktor.”

“Yes. It is.”

Alex felt Zoe’s eyes flick toward him from across the room. He kept his posture loose, smiling at the bartender to sell the performance.

“Sixty-fifty wasn’t on the table either,” Viktor said. “I financed this entire operation. I sourced your equipment. I provided intelligence that kept your team alive more than once. You want to argue percentages, Renault, we can argue them in person tonight. But the split will be seventy-thirty. In my favor.”

“Agreed,” Alex said, the word clean, no hesitation. The confidence of a man who had no intention of honoring any split at all.

His right hand slid below the bar. Index finger began tapping the polished mahogany. Once. Twice. A rhythm only his crew would notice. The tell.

“Good,” Viktor purred. “I’ll see you tonight. Bring me something impressive. Or don’t. The result will be the same.”

The line went dead.

Alex set the phone down, finger still tapping. He couldn’t stop it. The muscle memory of every bluff he’d ever folded on behind the tables, every hand where he’d held nothing and bet everything anyway.

Zoe crossed the floor, brushing past a group of high rollers in blazers and sunglasses. She stopped beside him, eyes tracking his hand before lifting to his face.

“Seventy-thirty,” she said. Not a question.

“You heard.”

“Window was open. The bar’s echo carries.” She angled herself so no one could read her lips. “You agreed.”

“I did.”

“You’re lying to him.”

Alex’s finger finally stopped. He curled his fist, pressed it knuckles-down against the wood.

“I’m lying to a man who thinks he owns me,” Alex said, quieter now. “It’s the only honest move I’ve got left.”

“He’ll be here tonight.” Zoe’s voice was flat, but her jaw was tight. “In the building. During the operation. Watching us.”

“He thinks he’ll be watching us work for him.” Alex glanced at the casino floor, at the security cameras sweeping their arcs, at the two guards by the vault cage who’d rotated in earlier than scheduled. “He’ll be watching us steal his ledger. He’ll be watching us crack his vault. And he’ll be standing in the middle of it all when Laurent’s people respond.”

Zoe processed that, a beat of silence stretching between them. “He’s walking into our play whether he knows it or not.”

“He sees himself as the predator,” Alex said. “But he’s walking into the kill box we built for the security team. One trigger, Zoe. The moment he’s inside the corridor, you seal it. Everything and everyone in that space is trapped.”

“The timing’s going to be brutal. I need six minutes from the vault breach to the extraction. My trigger window only closes the cage for four.”

“Then we work inside four.”

“Alex, I told you. The data purge wipes the system logs, but Viktor will have backup comms. A direct line to someone outside the building who can call in muscle before we’re gone.”

Alex’s finger started tapping again. He caught himself, shoved both hands into his pockets.

“Then we take his coms before he gets in,” he said. “Jules is already in the pit lane. He can intercept Viktor’s arrival escort and slide backup jammers onto the vehicles. Viktor makes his entrance without a connection to the outside world. Alone.”

Zoe’s eyebrows rose a fraction. “You’re cutting him off from the network. That’s aggressive.”

“I’m making sure tonight is a fair fight,” Alex replied. “For the first time with that man.” He straightened, exhaled slow. “Send Jules the details. I need him to know the escort route before Viktor turns onto Avenue Princesse Grace.”

“Jules doesn’t know about the kill-switch, Alex.”

“He doesn’t need to know about that. He needs to know where Viktor parks.”

“He’s going to ask why we’re moving on Viktor before the vault. He’s going to want the full picture.”

“Then tell him it’s theatre.” Alex met her gaze. “Tell him Viktor showing up is a blessing. A VIP distraction. Laurent will prioritize protecting a guest of Viktor’s status. Security will collapse inward, away from the cage.”

“And Viktor will be inside the bubble you’re planning to collapse.”

“That’s the idea.”

Zoe studied him. He could feel her searching for the angle, the gap, the thing he wasn’t saying. But he’d practiced this mask too long on too many losing hands. She found nothing.

“Your hand,” she finally said, quiet. “You were tapping again. When you told him you agreed.”

Alex’s jaw tightened. “You noticed.”

“I’ve been watching you a long time, Ace. Longer than either of us likes to admit.” She stepped a half-closer, dropping her voice to barely a murmur. “You agreed to his terms because you have no intention of paying him. That’s not a plan. That’s a declaration of war with an exit strategy that depends entirely on everything going perfectly.”

“It will go perfectly.”

“You don’t believe that. Your hand tells the truth even when your mouth doesn’t.”

Alex looked down at his fist, still buried in his pocket. Unclenched it. Let the blood back into his fingers.

“If I’m lying to him,” Alex said, “it’s because I’m telling him what he needs to hear to get inside that building tonight. Once he’s there, the lie becomes truth. He’ll be part of the operation whether he wants to be or not. A player on a board he can’t see.”

“And when he realizes that, mid-heist?” Zoe pressed. “When he realizes your seventy-thirty is worthless paper?”

“Then he’ll do exactly what Viktor always does when cornered.” Alex’s eyes drifted toward the casino’s main entrance. “He’ll try to take control. And he’ll be inside a sealed maintenance corridor with no coms, no guards, no leverage except the power he doesn’t actually have over us anymore.”

A long silence hung between them, punctuated by the distant scream of race engines, a roar building toward crescendo.

“And if he doesn’t cooperate?” Zoe asked.

“Viktor’s never in his life had to cooperate with anyone.” Alex finally allowed a thin, cold smile to cross his lips. “Tonight we teach him how.”

Zoe’s phone buzzed. She glanced at it, then showed Alex the screen.

JULES: PIT WALL READY. JAMMER 2 IN PLACE. MAKE THE CALL.

Zoe looked up. “Tick tock, Ace.”

Alex nodded, pulling his hand from his pocket one last time. His fingers were perfectly still.

“Let’s go steal a man’s empire from under his feet.”