Chapter 6 - Trapped in the Web
The leader of the men was tall, wearing an expensive wool coat that looked entirely out of place in the rotting boathouse. He had a cold, calculating smile and held a small, polished silver lighter, opening and closing the lid with a rhythmic click-clack.
"Well, well, well," the man said smoothly, his eyes scanning me up and down. "The patriarch arrives right on schedule. Family loyalty is such a predictable weakness, isn't it, Michael?"
Michael shrank back against the workbench, his face pale as paper. "Leave him out of this, Viktor. We had a deal. I gave you the access codes to the offshore accounts."
"Access codes that turned out to be encrypted garbage, Michael," Viktor replied, his voice dropping an octave into a dangerous murmur. "You thought you could outsmart the syndicate? You embezzled three million dollars of our capital to fund your failing tech startup, lost every dime in bad crypto trades, and then tried to play hide-and-seek with our money."
The words hit me like a physical blow. Embezzlement? Syndicate? My son wasn't just in debt; he had crossed paths with organized crime.
"Listen to me," I stepped forward, putting myself between Michael and the men, drawing upon every ounce of authority I had cultivated over decades of life. "Whatever my son owes you, it can be resolved. But you leave the children out of this. They are innocent."
Viktor chuckled, a cold, humorless sound that sent chills down my spine. "Innocent? Perhaps. But they are also the only leverage we have left to ensure your cooperative son hands over the final encryption keys to the primary server database. And since you've so kindly joined us, Mr. Evans senior, you've just doubled our bargaining power."
One of the thugs stepped forward, pulling a pair of heavy zip-ties from his jacket pocket.
"Don't touch him!" Michael shouted suddenly, a burst of desperate courage breaking through his paralysis. He grabbed a heavy wrench from the workbench and lunged toward Viktor.
It was a brave move, but a fatal mistake. Before Michael could take two steps, one of the guards intercepted him, driving a fist into Michael's stomach. Michael collapsed to the concrete floor, gasping for air, clutching his midsection in agony.
"Michael!" I cried out, trying to rush to his side, but two pairs of heavy hands grabbed my arms, pinning them behind my back with brutal force.
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"Tie them both up," Viktor ordered coldly, flicking his lighter shut. "And call the transport truck. We're moving them to a secure location across the border before dawn. Once we get the codes, we'll see if these lovely children of yours are worth the price."
Despair threatened to swallow me whole. We were trapped in a rotting boathouse at the edge of nowhere, my son was injured, and my grandchildren were alone in a hospital room miles away, entirely unprotected. If we disappeared tonight, no one would ever find us.
