Chapter 10 - The Bait in the Harbor
I stared down at the handwritten note on the pillow, the words blurring slightly as a cold, paralyzing fury washed over me.
“They anticipated our move,” Marcus said quietly, stepping into the room behind me, his eyes scanning the corners for tripwires or secondary surveillance devices. He walked over to the bed, carefully lifting the edge of the card with the tip of his pen. “This isn't just a kidnapping, Sophia. It’s an exchange of leverage. They know you hold the master decryption keys to the Veloce Holdings offshore accounts, and they know the federal grand jury is set to indict their entire network by morning.”
“They took my daughter to buy twenty-four hours of breathing room,” I whispered, my voice trembling with a terrifying, lethal intensity that made even a hardened operative like Marcus step back half a step.
“What’s your play, Commander?” Marcus asked, lowering his weapon and looking straight into my eyes. “We can alert the FBI field office, coordinate a regional dragnet across the harbor, and—”
“No,” I cut him off, ripping the note from the pillow and sliding it into my jacket pocket. I clicked the safety of my Walther PPK back into place with a sharp, definitive snap. “If we involve standard federal bureaucracy right now, they’ll move Ashley to a secondary offshore drop point, and we’ll lose her forever.”
May you like
I walked toward the doorway, my posture rigid, every ounce of my civilian life stripped away, leaving only the cold, unyielding resolve of a military commander heading into battle.
“You said yourself they want the master ledger at the old dry docks by dawn,” I said, turning back to face him in the sterile hospital corridor. “Then that’s exactly where we’re going. But we aren't going to negotiate with them. We’re going to hunt them down.”
