Chapter 17 - The Antidote
Vanessa screamed in fury, thrashing wildly as she clawed at Hannah’s face. Despite her designer gown and refined upbringing, Vanessa fought like a cornered wild animal. She managed to shove Hannah off, reaching into her bodice to pull out a small, lethal silver dagger.
"You ruined everything!" Vanessa shrieked, lunging wildly at Hannah's chest.
Hannah sidestepped the sloppy attack with the calm, calculated grace of a surgeon. She grabbed Vanessa’s wrist, twisting it violently until the dagger clattered to the stone floor. With her free hand, Hannah pulled one of the vials of liquid nitrogen from her holster.
"You should have studied basic chemistry, Vanessa," Hannah said coldly.
She slammed the vial directly onto the lock of the titanium briefcase. The supercooled liquid instantly froze the complex electronic locking mechanism. Hannah grabbed the heavy silver handle of Vanessa's discarded dagger and smashed it against the frozen lock. The metal shattered into a dozen useless pieces, popping the briefcase wide open.
Inside were six glass vials of the deadly synthetic toxin.
Vanessa scrambled backward, her eyes wide with sheer panic as the freezing fog began to clear. Dominic stood silently behind her, holding a captured rifle, the four mercenaries groaning or unconscious on the floor around him.
"Don't touch those!" Vanessa screamed, watching Hannah carefully pull the vials from the velvet casing. "They are worth billions!"
Hannah didn't look at her. She pulled a second vial from her dress—a simple, concentrated alkaline solution she had prepared in her hospital lab. She calmly poured the solution directly over the six vials of the synthetic toxin inside the briefcase.
An aggressive, foaming chemical reaction occurred instantly. The deadly, billion-dollar synthetic poison hissed and neutralized, turning into harmless, cloudy saltwater before Vanessa's horrified eyes.
"Your formula was unstable," Hannah explained smoothly, closing the ruined briefcase. "Consider your auction officially canceled."
The heavy steel doors of the vault suddenly blew open. But it wasn't more Corsican mercenaries. It was a tactical strike team wearing the heavy tactical gear of the French Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE). Dominic had not just brought a gun to a fight; he had forwarded the entire dossier of Vanessa’s chemical weapon trafficking to the French intelligence agency the moment their plane landed in Paris.
The tactical team swarmed the room, securing the area and grabbing Vanessa by the arms, dragging her roughly to her feet.
"Dominic! You can't do this to me!" Vanessa screamed hysterically, her flawless masquerade mask trampled into the stone floor, her white dress ruined. "I am a Corsican! They will hunt you forever!"
Dominic walked slowly toward her, his dark eyes devoid of any emotion. He looked down at the screaming woman who had caused so much suffering.
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"The Corsican Circle just lost billions of dollars because of your arrogance, Vanessa," Dominic said softly, his voice chilling the air more than the freon. "They aren't going to hunt me. They are going to hunt you. And federal prison is the only place they won't be able to reach you."
He turned his back on her, offering his arm to Hannah. "Let's go home, Doctor Reed."
