Read Chapter 35: The Getaway

The wine cellar door groaned open. Alex blinked against the sudden glare of a flashlight, his fingers still working the loosened cable tie behind his back. Two of Viktor’s men stood there—the big one with the cauliflower ears and a younger guy who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.

“Boss changed his mind,” Cauliflower said. “Wants you in the car. Now.”

Alex stopped moving his wrists. The cable tie was almost off—one more twist and he’d be free. But _almost_ wasn’t _done_, and two armed men in a narrow cellar didn’t leave much room for a second attempt. He let his shoulders slump, playing the beaten man.

“Where’s he taking me?” Alex asked, voice rough from the hour of grinding his jaw against the gag they’d since removed.

“Helipad. Out of the country before the race. You’re a loose end he wants to cut personally.”

Alex’s stomach went cold. Viktor wasn’t waiting for the broadcast—he was running. That meant the man already suspected the exposure was real, that no amount of counter-hacking would stop what Zoe had armed. And if Viktor ran, he’d burn the evidence, take the names, vanish into whatever shell company network his money had built across four continents.

They hauled him up the stairs. Alex let them, counting steps, noting the exits, the windows, the positions of the guards he could see through the estate’s floor-to-ceiling glass. The dawn was still gray over the Mediterranean, the race circuit a distant ribbon of red and white barriers along the coast. Six hours to broadcast. Maybe less now.

They pushed him toward a black SUV idling in the courtyard. Cauliflower opened the rear door, and Alex caught a glimpse of Jules’s mechanic’s jacket bunched on the passenger seat—a signal, planted where Viktor’s men wouldn’t think to look. Jules had been here. That meant the others were moving.

Alex let himself be shoved into the back seat. Cauliflower climbed in beside him, the younger guard taking the wheel. The engine purred, and they rolled through the estate’s gates.

“Which way to the helipad?” the younger guard asked.

“East road. Quietest,” Cauliflower said.

Alex watched the hedges blur past. The estate sat above the port, its private road curling down through tight switchbacks that opened onto the coastal highway. He knew this route. He’d driven it a hundred times during his croupier years, watching the rich arrive and leave, always in someone else’s car.

The SUV took the first switchback, and Alex’s phone buzzed against his thigh—Zoe’s burner, still in his pocket, still undiscovered. He couldn’t reach it without drawing attention. He didn’t need to. The buzz pattern was their coded signal, three short pulses: _assets moving_.

They hit the main road, and Cauliflower tensed. Two police cruisers sat angled across the asphalt a hundred meters ahead, lights off but unmistakable. Behind them, a third cruiser blocked the lane.

“They’re checking vehicles,” the younger guard said.

“Drive through,” Cauliflower ordered.

“Through the checkpoint? We’re not flagged. We've got diplomatic plates.”

“We’re flagged now, you idiot. Boss’s name’s all over the wire. Turn around.”

The younger guard swore and yanked the wheel. The SUV swung into a narrow service road that hugged the cliff edge, gravel spitting against the undercarriage. Alex glanced in the side mirror. One cruiser pulled out, lights flickering on.

“They’re on us,” Alex said quietly.

Cauliflower cuffed the back of his head. “Shut up.”

“They’re going to catch you,” Alex continued, voice even. “Because you’re taking the obvious route. Every exit from this estate feeds into the same checkpoint net. Viktor planned his escape yesterday, but he didn’t plan for the police cordon. You’re driving into a box.”

The younger guard’s eyes flicked to the mirror, then to Cauliflower. “He’s right. The tunnel entrance is two klicks up this road. If we go through the race tunnel, we come out past the checkpoint entirely. Connects to the port underpass.”

“The tunnel’s closed for the race setup,” Cauliflower said.

“Closed to spectators. Barriers are temporary. I can thread them.”

Cauliflower’s jaw worked. The siren behind them grew louder. He nodded once. “Do it.”

The SUV surged forward, engine note rising as the younger guard floored it. The road curved along the cliff, hugging the rock face, the sea a steel-gray smear below. Alex braced himself against the door. Behind them, the cruiser’s lights swelled.

The tunnel mouth appeared ahead—a dark maw in the cliff, half-blocked by a stack of orange barriers and a striped pole. The younger guard didn’t slow. He hit the pole at forty kilometers and it snapped like a twig, the barriers scattering with a scream of plastic and metal.

The tunnel swallowed them. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, strobing across the dash. The sound of the engine bounced off the concrete, doubled, tripled, a deafening roar. Ahead, the tunnel curved right, its walls streaked with decades of tire rubber and exhaust grime.

“How far until the exit?” Cauliflower demanded.

“Four klicks,” the younger guard said. “Then the underpass splits—port left, highway right.”

Alex’s phone buzzed again. Two pulses. That was the second signal—the plan had shifted. He risked a glance down. The burner’s screen glowed with a single message from an unknown number:

_Chapel clear. Drive to slip E-7. Boat's fueled. No tail._

So Zoe had done it. She’d retrieved the drive from the chapel vault and was waiting at the port. Jules must have crossed the estate’s grounds to reach the safehouse, looped back to plant the jacket, and was likely already at the dock or about to be.

But the crew’s signal meant nothing if Alex couldn’t get out of this car alive.

“You’re going to have to drop me at the tunnel exit,” Alex said.

Cauliflower laughed. “We’re not dropping you anywhere except the helipad.”

“The police know this car. They’ll have the tunnel exit covered by the time we reach it. Unless I’m running on foot, through the maintenance shaft, and the car keeps going to draw them off.”

The younger guard’s eyes flicked to the mirror again. The cruiser’s lights were still there, but distant now—the tunnel’s echo made it hard to judge. “He’s not wrong. If they box us at the exit, we’re done. Boss wants him dead, but dead in a police car doesn’t help anyone.”

Cauliflower grunted. Alex could see him running the math, weighing Viktor’s orders against self-preservation. A captured courier with a dead body in the back seat faced a lot worse than one who’d let an unarmed man slip away into a tunnel maintenance shaft.

“The shaft’s two hundred meters before the exit,” Alex added. “I know this tunnel. Used to come through here when the circuit was being repainted. There’s a ladder to the service walkway. I’ll be gone before you hit daylight.”

Cauliflower’s hand moved to the door handle. He was thinking about throwing Alex out at speed, saving himself the trouble of a stop.

“If I go out at speed,” Alex said, reading the thought, “I break my ankle, maybe worse. Then the police find me crawling, and I start talking about who put me in this car. But if you stop, give me thirty seconds, you’re gone. No body, no mess, no reason for the cops to connect you to anything.”

The younger guard’s foot eased off the accelerator. “He’s right.”

Cauliflower stared at Alex for a long moment, something unreadable behind his eyes. Then he grunted. “Stop the car.”

The SUV shuddered to a halt in the tunnel’s gloom. Cauliflower shoved the door open, grabbed Alex by the collar, and hauled him out onto the concrete. The maintenance shaft was there, exactly where Alex remembered—a rusted iron door set into the wall, marked with faded hazard stripes.

“Thirty seconds,” Cauliflower said. “If I see you before then, I put two in your back and let the cops find whatever they find.”

Alex walked to the iron door, pushed it open, and slipped inside. The shaft was dark, cold, smelling of oil and damp. He climbed the ladder fast, shoulder screaming, the re-torn wound sending fire down his arm. He didn’t stop until he reached the service walkway, a narrow catwalk running along the tunnel’s upper curve.

Below, the SUV’s engine roared back to life and tore away toward the exit. The police cruiser followed, lights blazing.

Alex allowed himself one breath. Then his phone buzzed again—one pulse, long and insistent.

Zoe’s emergency signal. Something had gone wrong at the port.