Chapter 5 - The Trap Springs Shut
The door slammed open, rebounding off the concrete wall with a concussive shockwave that echoed through the damp cellar.
Arthur Vance spun around, his eyes wide with shock, the heavy wrench slipping in his grip as he reached blindly for a revolver tucked into his waistband.
He never got his hand on the grip.
Julian was already moving with the lethal, terrifying speed of a trained operative. He vaulted across the room, his boots hitting the concrete floor with a heavy thud, and drove his shoulder directly into Arthur’s chest. The two men crashed hard into a stack of rusted metal shelving, sending files, tools, and debris clattering across the floor in a chaotic shower of metal.
“Don't move!” I shouted, leveling the taser directly at Arthur’s chest as he tried to claw his way toward the dropped revolver.
Arthur froze, his face pressed against the dusty floor, gasping for air as Julian’s boot pinned his right shoulder firmly to the ground.
“You’re... you’re making a mistake,” Arthur choked out, blood pooling beneath his lip. “You think you killed the game, Cross? The federal indictments are already filed. The nursery... the nursery is already cleared out.”
My blood ran instantly cold.
The nursery.
“What did you say?” I screamed, stepping over Ethan’s chair and dropping the taser to grab Arthur by the collar of his shirt, hauling his head up off the concrete. “What did you do to my daughters?!”
Arthur let out a wet, bloody laugh, his eyes glittering with manic triumph. “Check your phone, Claire. Just... check your phone.”
My hands were shaking so violently I dropped my handbag twice before I managed to fish my smartphone out of the zipper pocket. The screen was lit up with three missed calls from Mrs. Gable, our head nanny at the penthouse, and a high-priority video notification from the nursery’s internal security feed.
I hit play.
The video feed showed the quiet, softly lit nursery in our Manhattan penthouse. Aria, Chloe, and Grace were sleeping peacefully in their white cribs.
Then, the door to the nursery slowly swung open.
A woman stepped into the frame, her face hidden beneath the dark hood of a cashmere cloak. She walked straight toward Grace’s crib, her gloved hands reaching down to lift my daughter into her arms.
And then, the woman turned slowly toward the camera.
She pulled back her hood.
I let out a blood-curdling scream that echoed off the damp cellar walls, dropping the phone onto the concrete as my knees buckled completely beneath me.
Because the face on that screen—the woman holding my baby—was someone who had been buried with full honors in a private family cemetery in Switzerland three years ago.
It was Victoria Sterling.
Julian dropped Arthur instantly, turning to catch me as I fell, his own eyes locking onto the fallen phone screen where Victoria was staring directly into the camera lens with a cold, victorious smile.
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And then, the screen flickered, went entirely black, and a single text message popped up from an unknown number:
Checkmate, Claire.
