She ordered me and my little girl out of “her house” on Christmas night, never realizing that her son owned the deed and was about to give her 30 days to leave.

“You betrayed yourself when you confused mercy for weakness,” Ethan replied.

The man standing behind Patricia—the scarred syndicate director—stepped forward, pushing Patricia’s head roughly aside with one gloved hand. Her champagne spilled over her designer silk blouse, and she let out a pathetic squeal of outrage.

“Shut up, old woman,” the syndicate commander growled in a thick Eastern European accent, ignoring her completely as he leaned into the frame. “Sovereign Leopold. I am Commander Vane. Your mother has been a very useful idiot, but her usefulness expires the moment the vault doors open. We have six heavy transport gunships en route to the Royal Citadel in Valois. You have two choices: enter the redoubt and negotiate a fifty-fifty partition of the Sovereign reserves, or watch your ancestral home become a crater.

”

“You made a critical error, Commander,” Ethan said, never blinking.

“Did I?” Vane sneered.

“You brought heavy transports into the Valois airspace,” Ethan stated smoothly. “Alistair, initialize the Heimdall Defensive Grid.”

Sir Alistair stepped up to the secondary terminal, entering an eight-digit override code and slamming down a covered crimson switch. “Airspace defense activated, Your Majesty. Surface-to-air defense batteries on Mount Saint-Valois are live and tracking.”

On the monitor, the cockpit alarms behind Commander Vane suddenly erupted into wild, frantic warbling. The scarred man’s confident sneer vanished instantly, replaced by a sudden flash of terror.

“What is that?” Vane barked off-camera. “Pilot! What are those radar locks?!”

“Those are the four automated Patriot missile batteries my father installed in the granite peaks thirty years ago,” Ethan told him calmly. “Their firing coordinates are governed solely by the bloodline transponder currently on my wrist.

If your aircraft does not turn around within thirty seconds, you will be vaporized over the glaciers.”

“Ethan! No! Stop him!” Patricia shrieked in absolute terror, dropping to her knees on the cabin floor of the jet as the turbulence of evasive maneuvers threw her into the bulkhead. “Ethan, I’m your mother! You can’t let them shoot me down!”

“You made your choice on Christmas night, Patricia,” Ethan said coldly, and with a swipe of his hand, he severed the connection.

Chap 35

High above the snow-capped peaks of the Swiss Alps, inside the private Gulfstream, the reality of absolute ruin finally crashed down upon Patricia Vance.

The jet lurched violently to the left as two surface-to-air missiles streaked past the wingtips, detonating in the clouds with concussive force that shook the aircraft down to its rivets.

“Turn back! Turn the plane around, you fool!” Patricia screamed, crawling across the carpet toward Commander Vane, clutching at the cuffs of his trousers. “I gave you the codes! I gave you the deeds to the suburban properties, the industrial holdings, the Vance family bonds! Save me!”

Vane looked down at her not with anger, but with absolute, cold disgust. He kicked his foot back, tearing his trousers from her manicured grip and sending her sprawling onto her back against the wet bar.

“Your codes are worthless garbage, you stupid cow,” Vane spat, pulling an automatic pistol from beneath his arm. “Your son owns the sovereign network. His biometric signature is the only thing that unlocks the central treasury. You promised us three billion euros in bearer bonds, and all you’ve delivered is a death sentence from royal anti-aircraft batteries!”

“No! Ethan is a coward!” Patricia sobbed,

mascara running in black rivers down her wrinkled, powdered cheeks. “He let me walk all over him for seven years! He lived in that tiny house! He drove a rusted truck! He won’t shoot down his own mother! He doesn’t have the stomach for blood!”

“He just shot down two of our escort helos over the border ridge,” the co-pilot screamed from the cockpit. “Commander, the Citadel’s perimeter defenses are fully locked on us! We have engine failure on port side! We have to ditch at the old private airstrip in the lower valley!”

“Prepare for emergency landing,” Vane barked, racking his weapon. Then he turned back to Patricia, whose face was completely pale, her chest heaving in hyperventilation. “Get up.”

“What… what are you going to do to me?” she whimpered, curling into a ball on the floor.

“You are going to walk ahead of my men through the Citadel’s iron gates,” Vane said with a cruel, sinister smile. “Let’s see if your gentle, obedient son will shoot through his mother’s heart to defend his throne.”

Meanwhile, forty miles away, our armored train ground to a halt within the subterranean cavern beneath the Royal Citadel. The heavy titanium gates swung open, welcoming Ethan back to the seat of his ancestors.

Waiting on the platform was a contingent of three hundred fully armed guards of the Sovereign Royal Guard, their black-and-gold uniforms pristine, their assault rifles held across their chests in salute.