Chapter 23 - Reunited in the Bay
Within twelve hours of Marcus's emergency call, a sleek private Gulfstream jet touched down at San Francisco International Airport under the cover of a foggy dawn. Waiting on the tarmac was a convoy of matte-black luxury sedans, their tinted windows reflecting the cold gray light of the bay.
I stepped down the metal staircase of the jet, adjusting my heavy wool coat against the damp California chill. Behind me descended Viktor, his tactical briefcase handcuffed securely to his wrist, scanning the perimeter with the cold, hyper-vigilant eyes of a military veteran. We hadn't taken a trip like this in over two years. Retirement had suited us well, but the moment someone dared to threaten Marcus—the boy who had unlocked my daughter's voice with half a peanut butter sandwich—all bets were off.
Marcus was waiting for us inside a private VIP terminal lounge. He looked exhausted, dark circles under his eyes, pacing nervously across the polished tile floor. When he saw me walk through the sliding glass doors, he stopped abruptly.
"Boss," Marcus breathed, a mixture of relief and guilt washing over his face. "I'm sorry for dragging you all the way out here. I wanted to handle this on my own. I didn't want to bring my world back into your peaceful life."
I walked across the room, stopping right in front of him, and placed a firm hand on his shoulder. "Listen to me, Marcus," I said, my voice steady and unyielding. "You aren't a visitor in my life. You're my family. And in my world, when someone touches my family, we don't hide—we hunt."
Viktor stepped forward, opening his briefcase to reveal a high-end portable tactical surveillance rig. "We ran facial recognition and license plate scans through our underground contacts in the Bay Area," Viktor reported crisply. "The two men who confronted Marcus on campus don't belong to a traditional mob. They work for a secretive corporate intelligence firm called Apex Data Dynamics—a front for a ruthless Silicon Valley venture capitalist named Charles Thorne."
"Charles Thorne," I mused, rolling the name over my tongue like a bitter pill. "The tech billionaire who buys up failing biotech startups and strips them of their patents?"
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"The same," Marcus nodded, walking over to the computer terminal. "Thorne found out about my AI predictive model for market fluctuations. He didn't want to buy it legally; he wanted to steal the intellectual property and weaponize it for hostile corporate takeovers."
"Well," I said, a cold, dangerous smile touching the corners of my mouth as I looked at Viktor and Marcus. "It looks like it's time to teach Silicon Valley a little lesson in old-school Chicago negotiation."
