Salt Kiss – Episode 56
Emergency lights flashed red across the hall. Tristan struck the nearest guard, took his weapon, and created a path toward Isolde.
Mark used the confusion to confront Vale, but the financier retreated behind a reinforced partition. Steel separated him from the chaos he had created.
“The drive,” Tristan called.
Isolde threw it across the room. He caught it and transmitted the encrypted contents to federal agents waiting beyond the perimeter.
The evidence was out. Even if they failed to escape, Vale’s network would no longer remain invisible.
Guards closed from two entrances. Mark and Tristan fought back-to-back while Isolde activated the fire suppression system.
Water flooded the floor and disabled part of the security grid. One set of exit locks released.
“Go!” Tristan ordered.
Isolde refused to leave without them. She seized a fallen access card and opened the partition protecting Vale.
The financier fired through the gap. Mark pulled Tristan aside, and the bullet struck a column.
Vale escaped into the private wing while federal teams breached the outer gate.
Tristan pursued, unwilling to let the man disappear again. Mark and Isolde followed despite the extraction order.
The corridor ended at an underground garage. Vale waited beside an armored vehicle with a detonator in his hand.
“The estate is wired,” he said. “Arrest me, and every buyer upstairs dies with you.”
Isolde studied the device. “You need everyone alive until the transaction records disappear.”
Her challenge unsettled him. Tristan recognized the bluff before Vale could recover.
Mark stepped between Vale and the vehicle. “You killed the man I loved because you thought grief would make me obedient.”
Vale raised the detonator. “It did.” His thumb came down as Tristan fired.