They Chose The Fake Heir

Chapter 5

The red warning light on Ethan’s private security terminal pulsed silently, casting a crimson glow across his face. On the monitor, the black SUV in the underground garage emptied out.

Six men in tactical civilian gear emerged, moving with the synchronized, lethal precision of high-tier mercenary operatives.

"They bypassed the primary perimeter guards," Sebastian noted, his voice remaining smooth and undisturbed, though he reached inside his tuxedo jacket to rest his hand on the grip of a concealed weapon. "The Murano Syndicate has deep roots in the city's private security firms. It appears they bought off our basement night shift."

"Let them come," Ethan said, his voice a calm, dangerous melody. He racked the slide of his matte black handgun, a sharp metallic clack echoing through the silent penthouse office. "Julian thinks a few men in the dark can rewrite a multi-billion-dollar ledger. He still doesn't understand that in this city, I am the dark."

Ethan tapped the glass screen of his terminal, pulling up the controls for the building’s main elevator matrix. The mercenaries had already entered the private VIP elevator express, swiping a cloned biometric card they had likely stolen or forged. The digital indicator began to climb.

Floor 10... 20... 30...

"Sebastian, cut the main power grid to the elevator shafts on my mark," Ethan ordered, walking out from behind his desk. He walked with a predator's easy grace, completely devoid of the meek, slouching posture he had used to deceive the Vance family for nearly two decades.

"Standing by, Young Master."

Ethan stopped right in front of the heavily reinforced silver elevator doors at the back of his penthouse. He raised his weapon, extending his arm with flawless, military-grade posture.

Floor 70... 80... 85...

"Now," Ethan murmured.

Sebastian slammed his palm onto the master override console. The brilliant chandelier above them flickered and died, plunging the massive room into a cold shadow illuminated only by the distant neon city lights bleeding through the rain-slicked windows.

Deep inside the walls, a massive mechanical groan echoed. The elevator indicator froze at Floor 87.

Down in the shaft, the sudden emergency magnetic brakes clamped hard, sending a violent shudder through the steel cable network.

Through the thick metal doors, Ethan could hear the muffled, panicked shouting of the mercenaries trapped just one floor below him. They were elite corporate saboteurs, but they had just been turned into rats in a vertical tin can.

"Julian’s first mistake was assuming I would wait for him to strike," Ethan said, stepping closer to the elevator door. He pulled a small, heavy tactical device from his pocket—a localized thermite charge—and slapped it directly onto the seam where the elevator doors met.

He triggered the remote.

A blinding, white-hot spark erupted, hiss-burning through the reinforced steel locks in a matter of five seconds. With a brutal kick from Ethan's boot, the elevator doors groaned and slid open manually, revealing the roof of the trapped elevator car sitting just three feet below the penthouse floor level.

Before the mercenaries inside could recover from the darkness or the heat, Ethan fired two precise shots downward through the elevator car's emergency ceiling hatch.

Two muffled groans echoed from below, followed by the heavy thud of bodies hitting the floor.

"Flashbang," a voice hissed from inside the shaft.

Ethan didn't retreat. Instead, he dropped to one knee, angling his weapon through the gap. "You're too slow," he whispered.

He fired three more times, the deafening blasts illuminating the dark penthouse in brief, violent flashes of light. The remaining mercenaries inside the car didn't even get a chance to pull the pins on their tactical gear.

The confined space became a lethal trap. Silence instantly reclaimed the elevator shaft, broken only by the dripping of hydraulic fluid and the steady patter of rain against the skyscraper's exterior.

Ethan stood up, completely unbothered, and wiped a stray speck of dust from his sleeve.

"Clean it up, Sebastian," Ethan said, turning his back on the elevator. "And send the security feed directly to Julian’s personal laptop. Let him see exactly what happens to his cleanup crews."

"Right away, Chairman," Sebastian replied, picking up his phone to alert the penthouse's loyal internal security detail. "And what of the Vances? Our sources report Charles Vance is currently trying to liquidate his personal art collection at a shadow auction house downtown to secure cash before the federal freeze fully locks his personal assets."

Ethan paused, a dark, mocking smile playing on his lips. "An art auction? Perfect. Inform the auctioneer that Horizon Group will buy every single piece for pennies on the dollar. Let Charles think he’s escaping, and then rip the floor out from under him one more time."

Meanwhile, in a cramped, dimly lit room at the Airport Transit Hotel, Julian sat on the edge of a cheap mattress, his fingers flying across the keyboard of a secure laptop.

Across the room, Eleanor was weeping softly into a rough, low-quality towel, while Chloe stared blankly at the peeling wallpaper, her world completely shattered. Charles was pacing back and forth, his phone pressed to his ear, begging an underground art broker for an immediate payout.

"Yes, yes, the Monets! The whole collection! Just give me twenty million in crypto, anything!" Charles pleaded, his voice breaking. "I need it by midnight!"

Suddenly, Julian's laptop beeped. A video file had been forced onto his encrypted screen, bypassing his syndicate’s firewalls with terrifying ease.

Julian opened it. The black-and-white night-vision footage showed the interior of the express elevator at Horizon Tower. He watched in absolute, paralyzing horror as his elite six-man hit team was systematically dismantled in less than ten seconds by a single shadow standing at the top of the shaft.

At the very end of the video, the camera angle shifted. The shadow stepped into the frame, looking directly into the lens. Even through the grainy security footage, Ethan’s eyes burned with a cold, absolute dominance. He raised his hand, making a slicing motion across his throat, before the feed went completely black.

Julian’s laptop screen died, replaced by a single line of glowing red text:

YOUR TURN NEXT, LIAR.

Julian slammed the laptop shut, his breath hitching as a cold sweat broke out across his neck. For the first time in his life, the elite corporate assassin realized he wasn't the predator. He was just a lamb that had willingly walked into a tiger's den.