Chapter 28 #2
I step out of the shadows and walk through the open gate, stopping beside her. I look down at the woman who cleared our path without a single drop of blood.
“Remind me never to play poker with you,” I murmur.
“Let’s go,” she says.
We move fluidly through the dark. As we walk through the Grand Hall, our boots echoing softly on the marble, we pass what is left of the towering floral arch.
The gala blooms are mostly gone now, stripped back after the event, leaving only browned eucalyptus, brittle wire, and a few paper-dry white petals caught in the frame like ghosts.
She walks by it without turning her head. She doesn’t spare a single glance for the rotting symbol of her old life.
We reach the doors of the VIP Study. I push them open and step inside, pulling a handheld RF scanner from my belt to sweep the corners for active bugs or lenses. Green light. The room is clean.
Team 6 sanitized the crime scene perfectly on the night of the hit.
The mahogany table gleams in the dark. The plush velvet armchairs are arranged perfectly.
There’s no blood staining the expensive Persian rug.
The vase of orange lilies is gone. Only a faint antiseptic ghost lingers beneath the museum wax and old paper.
If I close my eyes, I can still hear the suppressed, metallic cough of my pistol. I can still see Elias falling to the floor, clutching his chest.
I set the black Pelican case I’m carrying onto the mahogany table and pop the secure latches.
“Time,” I say quietly.
Iris looks up at the tall antique clock standing in the corner of the room. “Eleven-twenty.”
“Forty minutes,” I say. “I need ten to rig the room.”
I pull out three micro-cameras, each no larger than a shirt button. I don’t need Elias’s blueprints for this; I know how these historic, Gilded Age mansions were constructed. The Waldorf architects loved their secrets.
I move toward the north wall of the study, stopping at the decorative plaster column that anchors the bookshelves.
I run my bare hands along the intricate molding until my fingers catch on a hidden, hairline seam.
When I press hard against the wood paneling, the hidden catch releases, and a tall, narrow section of the wall pops open, revealing a dark, hollow cavity behind the portrait of Cornelius Waldorf.
It’s a narrow, vertical void beside the steel safe, originally designed as a Prohibition-era smuggler’s hide. It’s barely wide enough for a man to stand inside.
I mount the first micro-camera directly into the intricate carving of the picture frame, angling the tiny lens down to cover the exact center of the room. I wire it swiftly to the transmitter pack, leaving the battery tucked safely inside the wall cavity.
I move silently to the HVAC intake vent near the ceiling. I attach a highly sensitive parabolic microphone directly to the iron grate, pointing the receiver toward the Persian rug.
“The acoustic vent,” I tell her, my voice low.
“It’ll pick up a whisper from anywhere in the room.
When he confesses, Varro’s servers will record the audio and upload it to three different encrypted locations simultaneously.
Even if he destroys this entire room, the audio is permanently in the cloud. ”
I plant the last two micro-cameras in the far corners of the room, blending the black lenses flawlessly into the dark shadows of the bookshelves.
I walk back to the center table and look at Iris.
“Come here,” I command.
She steps closer. I pull a tiny, flat microphone, no larger than a dime, from the protective foam of the case. It’s attached to a strip of clear medical-grade adhesive.
“Lift your shirt,” I say.
She pulls the hem of the oversized T-shirt up to her collarbone, exposing the soft skin of her stomach and the bottom edge of her lace bra. I step firmly into her space, my boots bracketing hers on the rug.
I peel the backing off the adhesive and press the microphone directly to the bare skin in the center of her chest.
As I press it down, my calloused knuckles graze the warm, rising slope of her bare breast. Beneath my fingers, I feel the rapid, terrified thud of her heart hammering against her ribcage.
She said she was steady in the car. Her eyes are perfectly cold. But she is terrified.
I smooth the tape down, making sure the wire is secure, and let my hand rest flat against her bare chest, covering her racing heart.
“Your heart is beating fast,” I murmur, looking down into her wide blue eyes.
“He’s my father, Cassian,” she whispers, her voice cracking. “I’m about to stand in an empty room and bait the man who read me bedtime stories into admitting he paid mercenaries to storm an estate, fully accepting I would die in the crossfire. I’m allowed to be a little anxious.”
I slide my hand up from her warm chest and reach behind her back. Slipping my fingers under the hem of her shirt, I feel for the hard, cold steel of the SIG tucked securely into the waistband of her tactical pants, and brush my thumb over the safety to ensure it’s ready.
I pull my hand away, wrapping my fingers gently around the back of her neck, careful not to press on the fading bruise I left there days ago. She lets me guide her forward until her forehead rests heavily against my chest.
“We can walk away,” I tell her, the truth of the words surprising even me.
The Ghost doesn’t walk away from targets. The Don doesn’t leave loose ends. But holding her right now, feeling her slender frame tremble against me, I realize I’m completely willing to throw the entire operation, the Ledger, and my revenge into the fire if it means keeping her safe.
“I can take you out to the car right now,” I vow. “We drive to the private airfield. We get on my jet, and we completely disappear. You don’t ever have to face him.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. She grips my T-shirt, twisting the fabric in her fists.
Then, she pulls her head back. Her eyes are shining with unshed tears, but the absolute resolve burning in them is unbreakable.
“No,” she says.
“Iris—”
“No,” she repeats, her voice hardening, freezing the tears before they can fall. “If we run, I spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. I need to do this, Cassian. Or I will never be free of him.”
I stare at her. She was raised in a glass house, meticulously taught to be fragile and obedient, and yet she possesses a spine made of steel.
“Okay,” I say softly.
I pull her T-shirt back down, completely hiding the wire on her chest and the gun at her back.
“Varro,” I say into the comms. “Audio check.”
“Loud and clear,” Varro’s voice responds instantly in my earpiece. “I can hear her breathing. Video feeds are active and clean. The room looks completely empty on the monitors.”
“Keep the line dark unless there is a physical breach,” I order.
“Copy that. Boss... target vehicle is approaching the outer perimeter. Black Mercedes town car. Four occupants: driver, Hale, and two men in the rear. It’s him.”
“Any NYPD escort vehicles?” I ask, my hand instinctively dropping to the grip of my SIG.
“Negative. No escorts. No flashing lights,” Varro reports, his tone shifting into combat readiness. “They’re pulling into the front plaza now. The two men in the back are definitely private cleaners.”
He came exactly as Iris predicted—arrogant and intensely secretive.
I look at the tall antique clock. Eleven-fifty-five.
I pack the remaining gear into the Pelican case, snap it shut, and slide it out of sight beneath the window drapery.
I turn back to Iris. She’s standing perfectly still in the center of the Persian rug, exactly where Elias bled out. She’s hugging her arms tightly around her waist, staring at the closed doors.
I walk over to her. Reaching out, I grab her face with both of my large hands, forcing her to look away from the door and up at me.
“Listen to me very carefully,” I say, my voice a fierce, vibrating whisper. “He’s going to try to manipulate you. He’s going to lie to your face. He’s going to use every psychological trigger he installed in your head to make you doubt yourself.”
“I know,” she says, her hands coming up to grip my wrists like lifelines.
“Do not let him get within arm’s reach,” I command, my eyes boring into hers. “Keep the desk between you at all times. Keep him talking. Get the confession. And the absolute second he makes a move toward you, the second he threatens you, draw that weapon or drop flat to the floor.”
“And what will you do?”
“I’ll end him,” I vow.
I step back, severing the physical contact. The clock is ticking, and there is no more time.
“I’m right behind that wall,” I promise her. “He won’t touch you.”
“I know,” she breathes.
I turn and walk to the false panel on the plaster column. I pull it open and step backward into the narrow, pitch-black void between the inner wall and the steel safe.
It’s horribly claustrophobic. The void was built for a smaller man. To fit my frame, I have to turn completely sideways, pressing my chest flat against the back of the portrait.
The movement forces my injured left shoulder to compress against the cold, rough brick behind me. The freshly stapled muscle screams in protest, but I lock my jaw, refusing to make a sound. I’ll bleed out inside this wall before I compromise her safety.
I draw my SIG with my right hand, holding it tight to my chest at the low ready. The quarter-inch gap in the decorative molding gives me a perfect, unobstructed view of the room and the double doors.
“I’m set,” I whisper into the comms.
Iris doesn’t reply. She can’t risk speaking aloud now.
She stands alone in the center of the room, letting her arms drop to her sides. She squares her shoulders and lifts her chin, wiping the last lingering trace of fear from her face. She builds the flawless mask of the perfect, poised daughter one final time.
She looks like an untouchable queen waiting to hold court.
Through my earpiece, I hear the rhythmic thud of her heartbeat.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Then, a second sound joins it.
Footsteps in the marble hallway.
They’re heavy. Measured. Deliberate. The distinct, arrogant clack-clack-clack of expensive dress shoes echoing loudly in the empty, dead museum.
The brass handle of the mahogany door slowly turns.
The hinges groan, and the doors swing open.
Judge William Hale steps into the room.