Chapter 6 - The Weight of a Badge
The red and blue emergency lights painted violent, flashing patterns against the tinted glass of the armored SUV, casting shadows across Elias’s hardened face. But as the doors of the leading police cruiser swung open, the men stepping out didn't wear standard Boston police uniforms. They wore dark, unmarked tactical rain gear, and none of them reached for their service weapons with the hurried panic of regular law enforcement executing a sudden stop.
Instead, they moved with an eerie, coordinated calm.
“They aren't local precinct,” Elias said, his voice terrifyingly quiet as he watched the lead officer approach the driver's side window. He glanced at the locked dashboard screen, which continued to pulse with a hard red override warning. “That's private security. Arthur Vance's private security detail, registered under a shell corporation.”
My heart hammered against my ribs, but the paralyzing terror of an hour ago had given way to a cold, sharp clarity. We weren't trapped by the law. We were trapped by a family coup disguised as state authority.
Beside me in the backseat, Evan shifted, his eyes wide and fixed on the handle of the door. “Addie, they’re going to pull us out. What do we do?”
Before I could answer, a sharp rap echoed against the driver's window.
Elias didn't flinch. With a sudden, calculated motion, he didn't roll the window down; instead, he bypassed the locked dashboard system using a manual override switch hidden beneath the steering column—a feature built into his private fleet that even his corporate executives didn't know existed.
The heavy door on the passenger side popped open just an inch, breaking the electronic seal.
“Elias,” I whispered, grabbing the sleeve of his coat. “If we run, we have nowhere to go.”
“We aren't running,” Elias replied, turning his dark, intense eyes toward me. His expression carried a weight that made my chest tighten. “Arthur thinks he has checkmated me by seizing the network and cutting off my transit. But he made one fatal mistake.”
“What's that?”
“He assumed I built my empire on trust,” Elias said, his mouth forming a thin, unforgiving line. “I built it on redundancy. The master logs aren't on the home network server Eleanor accessed. They’re physical. And they’re sitting in a safety deposit box at a federal credit union downtown, registered under your brother’s military service number.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Daniel?”
“When I set up the trust fund for you and your brother years ago, I never took his name off the secondary contingency files,” Elias explained quickly as the tactical officer outside began shouting orders for us to exit the vehicle. “Arthur can lock down every digital screen in Boston, but he can't touch a physical paper trail locked in a government vault that requires a blood relative’s signature to open.”
The passenger door was wrenched open from the outside. A cold blast of morning air rushed into the cabin, accompanied by the harsh voice of a man wearing a dark tactical cap.
“Step out of the vehicle, Mr. Baron. Hands where we can see them.”
Elias didn't move immediately. He looked at me, his gaze softening by a fraction. “Adeline. When they pull us out, they’re going to separate us. They’ll take me to Arthur and Eleanor to sign over the corporate shares. They’ll put you and Evan in a holding room. You need to take this.”
Before I could protest, he pressed a small, cold metal key into my palm—the emergency key to the safety deposit box, hidden inside the lining of his lapel.
May you like
“Find the box,” Elias whispered fiercely just as strong hands grabbed his shoulders and hauled him out of the vehicle. “Open it. And whatever you do, don't trust a single word Arthur tells you.”
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