Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
“Enley,” I say quietly into the radio. “Status on the delay?”
Her voice comes through clear and steady. “It’s active. When she authorizes the wire, the confirmation will hold for ten minutes before it goes through. She won’t see anything unusual on her end. It’ll just look like normal bank processing.”
“Copy.”
“I’m watching the approach cameras Arrow patched through. When she shows up, I’ll have her on screen before she reaches the door.”
“Good.”
“And Render.”
“Yeah.”
“Non-lethal,” Enley reminds me.
“That’s the plan.”
“That’s not what I mean. I mean remember who you are. Not the version who cleared the warehouse or went through the facility in the dark. The version who went around Millhaven because civilian lives still mattered. That version. She’s a person walking into a bank. Not a target in a compound.”
Her words settle in. She’s right. I’ve been treating this like a straight tactical problem—intercept, contain, control. But Enley’s reminding me that the woman I’m about to face is still a human being, even after everything she’s done. And there’s still plenty of innocent civilians around. Don’t want things to get too messy.
I don’t feel sorry for Serafina. She kidnapped Enley. She took my crew. She had Poe beaten. She threatened the woman I love. But Enley’s asking me to stay the man who chooses the harder right thing, not the easier wrong one.
“I hear you,” I say.
“I know you do.”
We wait. The lobby stays quiet. Outside, the street keeps looking like a place where nothing important ever happens.
“Vehicle approaching,” Enley says. “Black sedan. Single occupant. Female. Dark hair. She’s turning into the parking garage.”
“Arrow. Garage cameras.”
“On it.” A short pause. “Confirmed. It’s her. Parking on level B1 near the private elevator. She’s alone.”
Serafina is thirty seconds from walking into a building surrounded by people who’ve been preparing for this for weeks. She doesn’t know it yet. She thinks she’s just handling a routine money transfer that will let her disappear. She thinks the exit is still open.
It’s been closed since Enley sent the evidence package.
“She’s in the elevator,” Arrow reports. “Coming up to the lobby.”
I set the magazine down and stand. Smooth the front of the suit jacket. The gun is under the jacket in a holster, but I don’t plan on using it. This isn’t the facility. This is a bank on a regular afternoon with civilians in the lobby and a security guard who thinks his biggest problem today is going to be a parking argument.
The elevator chimes. The doors open. And there she is. Serafina steps into the lobby.
She looks exactly like she did in the videos. Composed. Controlled. Dark coat over a white blouse, hair pulled back, the posture of someone who’s used to walking into rooms she owns. She carries a leather portfolio under one arm and her phone in the other hand, heading straight for the executive hallway.
She doesn’t see me at first. She’s focused on the door she needs.
I step into her path.
She stops. Recognition takes about half a second. Her eyes move from my face to the suit to the exits she can see, and the calculation behind her expression is fast and thorough.
“You’re the failsafe,” she says. Her voice is even. Controlled. The same voice from the hostage video. “Render James.”
“Serafina Delacroix.”
“I assume I’m surrounded.”
“Yes.”
She glances at the front doors, the hallway, the elevator she just used. Running the numbers. Three ways out. All of them covered. The security guard at the front desk has noticed two people standing in the middle of his lobby with more tension than a normal conversation, and he’s trying to decide whether to step in.
“Your financial network has been documented and sent to the federal authorities,” I tell her. “The freeze orders are already being processed. The wire transfer you’re here to authorize has a ten-minute delay on it. In about eight of those minutes, FBI agents will walk through that front door based on information from an undercover asset who spent eighteen months inside your organization.”
I watch each piece of information land. The money network. The freeze. The delay. The FBI. Orchid.
Her face doesn’t crack. But something shifts behind her eyes, like a building realizing the foundation has a problem it can’t ignore.
“The evidence package,” she says. “The one that mapped everything. That was thorough. Too thorough for your profile. You had help.”
“I had a partner.”
“The sister. Poe’s sister. The one I had in a container.” She says it like a chess player admitting she underestimated a piece. “I should’ve killed her.”
“You shouldn’t have taken her at all.”
“Perhaps.” She studies me for a second. “You’re not going to hurt me.”
“No.”
“That’s what makes you weak.”
I don’t flinch. I know that’s the reaction she wants. Instead I simply smile. “No, it makes me smart.”
“You think you’re smart.” She tilts her head slightly. “I studied you after the warehouse. You think you’re smart, but I’ve already prepared for this exact scenario.”