Chapter 5 - The Chessboard Shrinks
“What does it say?” I asked, my voice dropping into a dangerous whisper as I tightened my grip on Naomi.
Lincoln didn't answer immediately. He stared at the paper, his jaw working as if he were chewing on broken glass. Then, slowly, he folded it in half and slid it into his pocket.
“Bruno,” Lincoln said, his voice entirely devoid of emotion. “Take Clara and Naomi down to the safe suite on the fourteenth floor. Order whatever they want from the kitchen, double the guard detail outside the door, and do not let anyone—not the staff, not the accountants, nobody—within fifty feet of them.”
“Boss,” Bruno protested slightly. “Garrett knows about the fourteenth-floor suites. If he’s compromised the security grid—”
“That’s why you’re personally locking them in,” Lincoln interrupted, his eyes flashing with a silent command. “Go.”
Clara, still shaking, grabbed Naomi’s small hand. I pressed a kiss to the top of my niece’s head. “Go with Mr. Bruno, sweetie. I’ll be right down to see you in a little while, okay?”
“Are you coming, Aunt Delia?” Naomi asked, her big eyes filled with a heartbreaking level of uncertainty.
“Very soon,” I promised, forcing a smile that felt like cracking dry earth.
As soon as the elevator doors closed behind Bruno, Clara, and Naomi, the heavy silence of the hallway settled back over us like a lead blanket.
I turned on Lincoln. “Give me the note.”
Lincoln hesitated, then reached into his pocket and handed over the folded cardstock.
I unfolded it. Printed in block letters were three short sentences:
“The girl and the brat are just a preview, Lincoln. You sign over the harbor logistics transfer by midnight tonight, or the next package we drop off won’t be breathing. Meet me at the pier warehouse 4 if you want to negotiate.”
My fingers curled around the heavy paper, crumpling the edges. “He’s threatening an eight-year-old child.”
“Garrett is desperate,” Lincoln said, his voice low and dangerous. “He knows we found the ledgers. He knows that if I audit the Meridian Holding accounts, he’s looking at twenty years in a federal penitentiary. Desperate men make catastrophic mistakes.”
“Then let’s stop playing defense,” I said, looking straight into his eyes.
Lincoln stopped pacing, turning to look at me with a sharp, incredulous frown. “What did you just say?”
“You heard me,” I stepped closer, my legal background and my raw, protective fury finally aligning into a single, cohesive weapon. “Garrett thinks you’re isolated, paranoid, and cornered. He thinks you’ll walk into pier warehouse 4 alone tonight like a good little mob boss to save your own skin. But he doesn’t know about me.”
“Delia, no,” Lincoln snapped, stepping into my path. “This isn’t a corporate board room or a hotel lobby. Garrett’s men carry automatic weapons. If you get involved—”
“I’m already involved! They dragged my niece into this!” I shouted, my voice echoing off the glass walls. I jabbed a finger against his chest, right over his bandaged arm, and he didn't even flinch. “You have the empire, Lincoln, but you’ve been fighting this war blind because you trusted the wrong snakes. You need someone on the inside who Garrett doesn't suspect—someone he thinks is just a terrified hotel maid.”
Lincoln stared down at me, his chest heaving. The pale gray eyes were stormy, warring between the instinct to lock me away in a titanium vault and the desperate, gnawing realization that I was entirely right.
“What’s your plan?” he finally whispered.
“We don't wait for midnight,” I said, a cold, sharp smile touching my lips. “We flip his own trap. You send Garrett a message accepting his meeting at pier warehouse 4... but we switch the time to noon. And instead of you walking through those doors alone, I’m going to walk in first with the complete forensic audit of Meridian Holding in my hand.”
“And if he tries to hurt you?” Lincoln asked, his voice dropping to a gravelly, lethal growl.
“Then he has to get past the woman who stitched up your arm in an alley while bleeding and penniless,” I replied, holding his gaze without blinking. “Trust me, Lincoln. I’m tougher than I look.”
May you like
Lincoln held my stare for a long, agonizing heartbeat. Then, slowly, a dangerous, dark grin broke across his rugged face—the look of a man who had finally found an equal in a world of cowards.
“All right, Delia,” Lincoln murmured, reaching out to gently trace a knuckle along my cheekbone. “Let’s go ruin Garrett’s day.”
